Posted in Legislative Research on Mar 07, 2019

Myanmar Telecommunication Corporation (MTC) Bill is submitted by the Transport and Communication Ministry to the second Amyotha Hluttaw which convened the 10th regular session and the Bill committee clarified a report regarding with that Bill. The purpose of MTC Bill is to decentralize a State-Owned Enterprise (SOE), Myanmar Posts and Telecommunications (MPT), and give more freedom to the telecommunication sector of the country so that it can manage spontaneously in a free market environment. And it also intends to provide the Government Revenue effectively and to support economic growth of the country.

However, we must note that there have been many attempts by the previous governments to privatize the State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs). In 2013, the government started taking steps to open up the telecommunications market and to provide competitions in the telecom sector, the government enacted Telecommunications Law. At that time, USDP government enacted many similar laws such as Myanmar National Airlines Law, Inland Water Transportation Law which tried to privatize or corporatize another SOE called Inland Water Transport. These laws wished to denationalize many SOEs according to market principles and to deliver fast economic growth for the country.

That is why if we want to examine the efficacy of Myanmar Telecommunications Corporation Bill of NLD government which intends to free the telecom sector and to decentralize the control of central government, we need to compare the Bill with previous laws which have similar purposes. We need to find the strengths and weaknesses of these market-oriented laws and then, we will be able to find the best possible solution for the State-Owned Enterprises (SOE) problem.