Transcript: Episode #277: No Money, Mo’ Problems
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Host 0:18
Thank you for joining us for the next hour or two in this episode of insight Myanmar podcast. In an age of nearly limitless content, we appreciate that you're choosing to take valuable time out of your day. To learn more about what is happening in Myanmar, it's vital for the story to be heard by people around the world. And that starts right now with you.
Brad 1:51
And welcome back. My guest today is Sean Turnell. Back for I believe his third interview with us. Last time I interview Sean Turnell, we spoke about the military's economic policies prior to the coup, and during the phone democracy period. Today, we're going to be looking at economic developments both on the side of the military and on the side of the revolution, post coup. But before we get into it, I just like to note for the benefit of our audience that I am working through an illness and if there is a decline in quality, I apologize preemptively for that. So Shawn, thank you very much for coming back. And for the benefit of those who maybe don't know your name and haven't heard the previous episodes? Would you like to briefly introduce yourself?
Sean Turnell 2:31
Yeah, sure. And just say it's a very great pleasure to be back. And yes, my name is SSean Turnell, longtime academic researcher on Myanmar, but then became part of the policy process under the NLD. Government. And so it was there from roughly 2017 to 2021. I was taken prisoner at the time of the coup and spent nearly two years in the man's prisons, but back now, written books on all of that part, but sort of now back into the policy area, which I guess is what we're going to talk about today.
Brad 3:05
Excellent, excellent. And again, we have done I believe, two interviews with you previously, I'd strongly recommend to our listeners to go and check those out. Because they're both very interesting. And they delve into a lot of fascinating aspects of, of both your experiences and the and the overall economic reality. But, you know, let's let's then jump into to the post coup, there's been a lot going on. So let's first and foremost, look at what the revolution has been doing. So we've seen a number of different things we've seen selling shares off in military properties that have been taken over by the revolution. We've seen the energy bonds, early in 2021, we saw a new GE lottery. And we've seen a lot of remittance payments from from the International, Myanmar expatriate community. So can you talk a little bit about the ways in which the revolution and the national unity government have been securing funds?
Sean Turnell 4:03
Yes, certainly. And I think I suppose the first thing to start off is just how innovative it's been, and how much dedication has gone into it, if you like it's studying waters worked elsewhere. And I guess it was an early recognition, even though you know, unfortunately, time has validated this that me and Mars opposition, the fight against military rule was not going to get much in the way of international support. And given everything in the state of the world, it was mostly going to rely on me and my people, in essence, both within me, Mara and outside, so all sorts of innovations, I guess, to finance that revolution. And so we've seen a bunch of things, some of which you mentioned some of it, I think, you know, extremely innovative and borderline cheeky, and I think, you know, makes people around the world set up to attention such as the auctioning off of the property of senior military officials. Wouldn't zone. But then sort of more, I guess, more, you know, sober policies of the sort of selling bonds and the various ways of raising money internationally. So, yeah, I think it's certainly been interesting, because I guess, up until fairly recently, ways of raising funds for for movements like this, have relied on all sorts of traditional activities. But what we've also seen is very much an embracing of some of the modern technologies, you know, from virtual tokens to crypto currencies and virtual banks and all the rest of it. So, yeah, quite innovative, which is interesting to me, actually, because, you know, one of the major criticisms of economic policymaking in Myanmar, pre the coup, but after the coup certainly, is that sometimes has lacked a bit of innovation. And that's certainly been there, you know, for the for the opposition.
Brad 5:59
So you said that the revolution was not able to get a lot of funding from the international community. And that seems to be the case. But at the same time, we do see a lot of very large numbers being thrown around the Burma bill. And subsequently, the the National Defense Authorization Act from the United States, both of those had very large numbers in the hundreds of millions, sort of money that was to be made available for dealing with the crisis in Myanmar. But despite these large numbers that occasionally pop up, whether we're talking about NGOs, whether we're talking about foreign governments, whether we're talking about supranational organizations, United Nations, the European Union, and so on, it seems to always be the case that these large sums of money are being quote unquote, made available, but that does not translate to being transferred directly to revolutionary groups being transferred directly directly to the national unity government. So what what does it mean, when governments or large international organizations say that they will be spending a certain amount of money on this crisis?
Sean Turnell 7:04
Yeah, unfortunately, it means that sometimes those numbers have to be taken with a grain of salt. I mean, which is not to downplay them too much, because it sort of represents a, it's a statement, if you like of support, but to actually apply the funds becomes then very, very difficult. And I think there's a couple of aspects there. Firstly, there are usually hold ups within the legislatures or the governments of the countries making those sort of funds technically available. Secondly, being able to access the funds and apply them to activities that meet the requirements that sometimes is put on top by these gifting legislatures, and so on, becomes even more difficult. So, yeah, so doing the activities that will suit whatever the the ascending government, if you like, will allow to take place as a sort of extra layer of complexity as well. But, but yeah, but but they're often caught up with all sorts of processes within the sending country as well. So that, you know, an announcement might be made by government, but it's usually dependent on a piece of legislation that then has to be passed by Parliament, or some other process. So you know, the the complexity is really become quite extraordinary before anyone gets any money.
Brad 8:27
And speaking of procedural hangups, my understanding is, and this is not something that we've heard a lot about more recently, there was a lot more buzz about this in 2021, I think early 2022. Myanmar as a state has a not insignificant amount of capital stored in the United States, which to my understanding is a pretty normal thing for a lot of countries to do. And neither the national unity government nor the military have been able to claim access to those funds in in effect, the United States is, is sitting on those funds or whoever handles that, you know, the Federal Reserve, I don't know who is simply not not allowing those funds to be released to to either party. Is that still the case? And if so, what's what's going on with that? Can the United States simply refuse to hand over someone's money?
Sean Turnell 9:18
Well, effectively, and there's an issue here about whose money it is anyway, because of the bulk of those funds that have been suspended. And you're right to say that they were in the accounts of the Federal Reserve. The bulk of those funds are actually in IMF payment that was due to be made to me in March for post COVID relief. Then then the coup took place and that payment essentially was suspended. So so that that's the bulk of the funds that are suspended there in the Federal Reserve. So it's a really good thing that I think the US intercepted that money, because of course it is in the in the form of foreign exchange and hard US dollars that the Myanmar military could use for all sorts of various purposes. So the fact that it's suspended, I think is a really good thing. transferring the money, then to the NUJ or to the opposition more broadly, is a little bit more difficult because here, of course, we get into the issues of who speaks for Myanmar. And of course, you know, legitimately, it is the NUJ in the opposition to the military. But in terms of international law, and so on, we get into all sorts of complexities on this front, all sorts of issues to do with precedents, being cetera, et cetera. So there's a bit of a reluctance to make that second movement. So but but certainly the suspension in my view was a very good thing. But But the second thing, it doesn't look like it's going to happen anytime soon.
Brad 10:42
Okay, so But just to clarify that it is not the case that these funds in the United States are effectively Myanmar taxpayer dollars that the various governments have squirreled away and entrusted to the United States for safekeeping. These are, these are these are external payments that were intended for Myanmar. But that did not originate from within Myanmar.
Sean Turnell 11:04
That's the bulk of them, there's a little bit of money there that could be legitimately said as to belong to the Myanmar taxpayers. But for the most part, it's the interactions between me and Ma, and the so called multilateral lenders, IMF and World Bank and so on. So most of it is money relating to that. So the me my governments down the decades have placed most of their international reserves in other places, but above all in Singapore. Okay.
Brad 11:31
And we've, obviously, we've heard a lot of reports previously of of shady economic activity happening through Singapore. So I assume it was no, no accident that that's where the money was being kept.
Sean Turnell 11:46
Yeah, that's right. It's a little bit though, that in many ways, legitimately to Singapore is the logical place because it is the international financial center, if you like for for most of Southeast Asia, so it sort of fits. And there was actually a very rigorous process under the NLD government of making sure that Myanmar is the international reserves were transparently placed where they could earn the best return, basically. And some of that took place, as I say, particularly towards the end of the NLD government as the sort of getting the Mars international payments all in order. So, yeah, so certain logic, I think, to most of those funds being in Singapore. Okay.
Brad 12:27
So fair enough. Now. So this is where it starts to get a little bit difficult. Is there any way for us to track approximately the quantity of funds that have been raised by the various revolutionary forces? can we quantify it?
Sean Turnell 12:42
No, probably not. But which may not be a bad thing. I mean, it's, I think, when when we're talking about, you know, monies that belong to non government actors, it's, you know, would only be natural, I think for for, for that to be non public or so, you know, my my own bank account, I, well, actually wouldn't be much to, for anyone to know about anyway. But yeah, like so. So it's not unreasonable. I think that that accounts that belong to non government actors, not not broadcast sort of thing. But yeah, but it will be difficult to know. And, of course, I think the biggest difficulty there would would not actually be secrecy. In any case, it's probably just coordination, because I would imagine that there's different funds all over the place from various from fundraising activities all around the world. So pulling it together, and coming up with some aggregate number would probably be quite difficult anyway. Okay.
Brad 13:41
But nevertheless, the Ministry of Planning, finance and investment has periodically stated quantities that were raised through specific ventures. I can't remember the exact details, but I think selling off mineral lines property around in your lake, that was, if I remember correctly, was about 1000 US dollars per share, and they divided it into something like 10,000 shares or 100,000 shares so that that alone was anticipated to raise in the order of 10s of millions of dollars. So how has anyone sort of been tracking cumulatively these announcements by the energy of the the successes of these various projects?
Sean Turnell 14:24
I presume they have. I haven't been I've been watching with interest. But I'm assuming people have. And I've seen, you know, probably like most people listening you they're sort of watching things as they come about from bond issues, you know, to the sales to these properties and various other things. And certainly, the numbers seem, you know, quite impressive. And I'm particularly impressed, I guess, at the Myanmar community, Myanmar diaspore around the world and his willingness to tax itself in a sense, which is really quite extraordinary. But yeah, so what what the NAM has ultimately add up to. It's not something I know of. Yeah.
Brad 15:04
But so here's so here's the, the angle that I think is really important to cover. So what we saw in about the middle of 2021 was the same type of economic phenomena that we've seen elsewhere. But for many Myanmar, I think this was the first time that they've experienced that, you know, we saw runs on the banks, we saw government restrict or military restrictions placed on the amount of hard currency, you could withdraw per transaction per week, we saw a forced sort of divestment of severe civilian accounts from US currency, and a forced reinvestment in Myanmar currency. And all of these things, obviously, undermine people's faith in the economic system, but more to the point, the banks in your mouths, my understanding are largely controlled by the military. And therefore, the question is, if someone internationally wants to send financial aid to the national unity government or to, you know, CDM, or to whatever, what sort of financial processing agencies or bodies exist, to facilitate the transfer of those monies, ultimately, to the people in Myanmar, who needed without the military being able to take off the top?
Sean Turnell 16:22
It's incredibly difficult. I mean, it's a it's a good question. And it's a question that the devils, you know, everything we've been talking about so far. And, and for good reasons and bad reasons. On the good reason side, you know, we have all sorts of arrangements to try and track money laundering, etc. Now, normally, that that, you know, only implicates people who have bad ends in mind, unfortunately, he, the ends are good in a way, right. It's, it's to help the liberation movement, and so on. But sometimes the funds can get caught up in into that, basically. So banks, international banks, domestic banks, all around the world, most jurisdictions have very strict anti money laundering procedures, know, your customer rules, identification, all that sort of stuff. But of course, we're talking about activities where identification of individuals and identifying where funds are going and so on, could be deeply problematic and even dangerous for, for people who are, you know, nonetheless, trying to do their best to, to do good, if you like. So, unfortunately, the funding of Myanmar's opposition to the military all gets all caught up in rules that, you know, are well intentioned, but unfortunately, are not helpful in this specific situation. That's, that's one side. The other side, the bad side, if you like, is the is exactly your point, which is the military control, me and Mars economy in so many ways, including a great deal of control over the banks, including the banks, they own themselves, but the crony banks and so on, as well. So you've got to try and keep away from them as well, because they control most of the above ground transmission channels, if you like of money going in and out of the country. So yeah, so we've got two problems here, you've got an international issue to do with the policing of anti money laundering and counter terrorist financing, etc. But then you've got this other side, of course, which you you want to join the flow of financial resources out of the hands of the military as well.
Brad 18:29
And so in in combating this, the national unity government announced a cryptocurrency as well as the new GE pay app, which was sort of outsourced to third party companies, but nevertheless, was a fascinating step towards economic liberation from the military. But basically saying that, well, we've developed an entirely new currency and one that doesn't have to exist in the physical space. And we've developed an entirely new payment infrastructure, which works as long as your phone works, and the military is not able to intercept it. But the question is, what level of success? Has this venture seen both the cryptocurrency component and the payment app component? Like, do we have any information on whether or not this is working?
Sean Turnell 19:21
Well, it seems to be working in terms of the dollars being raised. I'm not sure again, myself, I hated the technical aspects of it, the extent to which that that's been working a lot, I get the feeling that it is, I would imagine that you know, that it's fairly limited in what it's trying to set out to do, of course, in many ways that we've sort of been forced into this and again, because of some of the issues that I mentioned before about some of the normal channels of international finance, etc, a closed off if you like, and so then you sort of come in into the realm of well, how do you get money in and out of me and my to help people etc. Do you go the traditional route? route things like Hornby and so on, which, by the way, would would have the same restrictions legally and so on. But of course, because it really relies on very ancient trust networks, they're often highly successful at avoiding all sorts of surveillance. But this is a more modern way of doing it if you like, and that's why, you know, I've been impressed by the innovatory aspect of it, and in many ways, sort of leaving out the promise of lot of the other cryptocurrencies about, you know, the, this is a liberation, if you like, from government and government control currencies, and so on. So we've got a sort of real live practical example experiment, if you like, underway, which is, you know, fascinating to watch. But, yeah, so but, you know, beyond that, I think, time will tell how it works. But it seems to be highly trusted, given the amount of money that that people are willing to put to it. And I suppose the thing about it, too, is it you know, it's voluntary, you know, where, and that's completely juxtaposition, if you like, to what's going on in me and my way so much in the monetary sphere is because of is due to compulsion, forced repatriation, forced transfers of funds, you know, all the old shenanigans of a military command economy over in the monitoring sphere we see again, so it's quite a breath of fresh air, if you like if you compare the two spheres.
Brad 21:23
And so let's so let's look at the military sphere for a moment, because I think it's very important to understand because the economy is not segregated into the revolutionary economy and the military economy. The country is the country, and the military's economic policies to date seem to have included, like, as I said, placing restrictions on withdrawals of cash, forcing people to convert their savings into jet, which in turn led to a lot of people purchasing gold, there was there was a big rush to buy a lot of gold. The military has tried to issue gold certificates. The military has issued a new bank node of the 20,000 chat denomination, the highest denomination that's ever been printed. And and I believe, earlier this year, or perhaps at the end of last year, they even announced that they expected Myanmar Companies to to fail to make their their repayment obligations to foreign entities. In the interest of keeping currency within within the country. I'm sure that the list of things that they've done in terms of economic policy has been even longer than that. But my question is, what impact has the military's policies had on the state of life in Myanmar economically?
Sean Turnell 22:40
Oh, it just remains, as we might expect. But essentially, and you're absolutely right, the list of these restrictions and, and impositions, if you like, of the military, on the average citizen in the economy, is extraordinary. And you know, we'd spend the next few hours just listing them, but we can collectively bring them together. And what we're seeing is a great struggle for control of the economy, but in particular, a great struggle for hard currency. And you know, what, if you if you stand back a bit and look at the policy framework, if we can even call it that of the military, that's what it really boils down to. Their one objective is to garner as much of Myanmar's economic and financial resources as possible for themselves. And the most valuable component of that, in turn, is international finance. Because, you know, me and my as industry, if you like, has been so degraded, but you know, and accelerated in that in that decline in recent times, that the military equipment that the military need, they need hard currency to pay for. And even the so called friends and allies, countries like Russia, and so on, are insisting on hard currency payments. So the military and Myanmar are absolutely desperate to get hold of US dollars, euros, basically, whatever they can to enable them to survive, that that's really what it's got down to, it's an existential struggle. Their policy framework really touches on nothing else, you know, there's no real education policy, to speak of, or health or anything to encourage foreign direct investment or, you know, improvements, transformation in agriculture or anything like that. I mean, it really boils down to a big question that I think men online wakes up to every morning, which is, you know, where can you get more US dollars today? And yeah, all of these items, if you look at them, the end result is more or less the same, which is about gathering as much foreign exchange as much hard currency as possible for the use of the regime.
Brad 24:54
But so on the topic of the US currency, I was recently interviewing my CAC over We're in DC, and we were discussing the new sanctions that were placed on emoji. Now these sanctions were signaled at the beginning of December or the end of November. And they they came into effect a little while ago. And as he was explaining to me, it's not simply the fact that there are now sanctions being placed on the Myanmar oil and gas enterprise, which was the major source of US currency. But it also means that financial institutions based in the United States, the financial institutions that handle the US currency payments, are themselves now legally required not to handle and process payments of US currency for emoji. So in effect, at least, the hope is that this is going to limit the the military's ability to get us dollars. I'm just wondering, do you have any thoughts on on the sanctions and the impact that that would have on the military getting US currency?
Sean Turnell 26:01
Yeah, ultimately, the these will be very important, which is not to say that other institutions around the world might not help the military regime avoid them. So we always have to have that in mind is that whenever you have sanctions, you have parties who are incentivized to avoid those sanctions and evade them, etc. But having said that, what it does mean is that reputable banks now have to be extremely careful, more careful than they were even before in handling payments, involving any entity to do with Myanmar. But the big issue here as my accent has to do with US dollars, because US dollar transactions ultimately go through you as clearing banks. And so that's where the system catches them up. Now, it still could be, as I mentioned, that international banks with their own US dollar holdings can move funds within their own balance sheets or things so that they don't need to go through us clearing arrangements can still do certain transactions, but it makes it more difficult. And that's really the key to it, it just tightens the screws that little bit further. And also, I think, again, sends a signal to reputable banks all around the world. Look, you know, you really shouldn't be dealing with these guys, and ultimately sort of poor pushing some of them into the position of making a decision. Do we want to play our play the game in the US? Or do we want to play with Myanmar generals and sort of, you know, can boil down to that.
Brad 27:29
I mean, you make it sound as though some of these financial institutions would actually be willing to push the envelope, and try to not necessarily outright defy these, these policies in the US, but we'll try to skirt them. And I'm just curious about that. Because we're talking about the obviously, evil regime. What's the sort of thinking on the corporate or the financial institution side of things in the United States? Like, would they be saying, yeah, it's an evil regime, but you know, money is money? Or do they have other types of motivations?
Sean Turnell 28:08
No. So I think the financial institutions in the US unless they, you know, way beyond the law would not be involved in this. But other institutions in other countries is where I guess my would be where I'd be looking in terms of transactions to evade sanctions. And so, so where I was going on there is that, you know, many financial institutions around the world have US dollar holdings. Now, they might have customers that hold surplus US dollars, say, and they might be dealing with me and Mars generals who need us dollars. So you would be able to do internal transactions within that particular bank, which wouldn't need to go through the US banking system, because it just be an internal transaction within the bank. I'm sure you can incentivize people within those bags to do those sorts of transactions. You know, so many miles General's might provide something else to the bank, who then provide us dollars, you know, from their surplus holdings, etc, as well, so that there's many ways to skin a cat. And if there's profits to be made, they you will always find someone willing to meet that demand. And so, I mean, I guess the sort of financial institution talking about it, the sort that a well practice in sanctions of Asians banks in in Iran, for example, in Russia and dayside, China and some other places as well. So, I think that's where we would need to be looking at in terms of things like, you know, just just trying to work out where Modi's money where the payments are going.
Brad 29:36
Although that being said, like you point out that a lot of these institutions, non US institutions have reserves of US dollars, because that's, you know, I think it's the most widely used international currency, but would those institutions not sort of be looking at the situation going maybe I don't want to splash my US dollars on A cause like this, maybe I want to keep my US dollars in reserves because, you know, if I fall afoul of the sanctions, that could be bad for me.
Sean Turnell 30:07
You're absolutely right, which means then that the profit margin would have to be really, really high, which in turn points to the incredible mismanagement of me and my generals because they will be huge funds that rightfully belong to the people of Mima that are wasted in all of these sorts of activities, these nefarious activities to disguise flow. So the inefficiencies alone, you know, what would be really instrumental? So, yeah, it's, uh, you know, it's a horrible story. But yeah, but but I did want to just sort of suggest that in the real world, you know, that there is a certain amount of evasion, but, but it would still hurt, it will still hurt the generals very much so and certainly still support it.
Brad 30:54
And so, looking at the more international scope, then that you mentioned, foreign direct investment. We saw a lot of companies, international companies pulling out of Myanmar, immediately post coup, we also saw a lot of those companies slowly coming back into the country, because they felt that they could get away with it, or their official position was that it's more valuable to provide employment to local people in these difficult times than it is to stand on your principles and cut the country off. What, since the coup, how much foreign investment how much foreign economic activity, has Myanmar retained, basically, I mean, we saw major companies pulling, we saw Telenor, you know, pulling out, who is anyone left? What's going on.
Sean Turnell 31:48
So there's been a wholesale collapse, basically, of FDI into Myanmar. And anything negative, as you suggested, many companies actually just leaving. So the flow of funds and flow of economic activity out of the country has been the big story on the foreign investment front. So the companies that remained a mostly in the traditional areas where companies do remain in highly conflicted environments, and that is, usually it's the extractive in the energy sector. So sectors where you can just come in the activities that you need to do digging up shipping stuff out in a pipeline into a ship or whatever, those activities, relatively simple, very limited footprint in the country, you don't really need to get too much involved in the domestic labor force, you don't need to employ too many people, you don't really need to meet all the domestic requirements that many other industries do. So the extractive sector, the energy sector, that's where they would be some attraction still, but even me, there's been big declines, you know, the investment in those sort of areas have dramatically down as well, because many energy firms, you know, facing shareholder activism and so on back home just don't want to be involved either. But where we've seen the wholesale exit, is anything to do with foreign investment that engages me and mom more broadly, that you know, needs to rent buildings that need to pay taxes that need to consider lots of workers and payrolls and all that, that's where there's been a huge influx, or D flux, if you like gamma the country, which is telling Oribi, the classic example. The counter example, though, of course, is exactly what you mentioned, as well, which is that we'll dilemma in areas, say, like the garment sector and so on, which might employ a lot of people, you know, fairly low, low skill, not not very high on the complexity of economic activity or anything like that, but, but certainly some of that still there. But But again, you know, there's been huge movement out of there, too. And for the same reason that many firms, of course, are not willing to live with the criticism that they're gonna get in their home countries when they source product from me.
Brad 33:59
And so there's a strong political component here. But what, what about China because we saw a lot of Chinese investment during the NLD. Government, we saw China trying to expand its Belt and Road Initiative into Myanmar, along with a lot of other places. And that it doesn't seem to be politically difficult in China to want to work with the Myanmar military. Like that seems to be something that's okay. Or at least it was until very recently, with regard to the military's inaction on on the scam centers that that China's very passionate about, but besides that, have we seen continued investment from places like China or potentially Thailand, possibly even Russia, although I don't think they would have had a lot of investment but do these allied countries continue to have an economic presence?
Sean Turnell 34:45
They certainly have a presence but even they're much reduced. And I agree with you 100%. Of course, China doesn't really care about the moral issues to do with its investment, but they do care about stability. They do care about getting rich Turn on their investment. They do care about security and things like that. And of course, all of that is nothing that can be guaranteed by Myanmar's military. So. So we have seen dramatic declines in investment from places like China and so on as well, even though they're much more resilient if that's the word one can use, and investing in places like Myanmar, but sometimes, you know, the situation in Myanmar now is so unstable, so uncertain, etc, that we see, you know, big declines in China as well, I fully expected actually to see much more activity on the on the VRI, the Belt and Road Initiative front than what we've seen, but I think they too, you know, even big infrastructure projects, big state infrastructure projects, you'll notice that many of those, there's, it's just been silent on that front, too. And I think that again, goes back to the whole issue of insecurity in Sony, Myanmar, this just means a little bit too hot, even for Chinese investors, who will usually you're used to going into places, you know, that are less than stable.
Brad 36:03
So taking all of these into account, like, what does that look like, on the street for the average person moving away from the sort of macro view to the individual trying to purchase food, trying to purchase fuel, trying to pay their bills, just trying to operate and maybe continue to run a business in in cities that have some level of stability? What is the net effect to these people of all of these economic policies since the coup?
Sean Turnell 36:32
Yeah, well, just a disaster, basically. And, you know, one has to be careful with the hyperbole sometimes. But if we look at Myanmar, that's really that those are the only sort of words that you can use disaster, catastrophe, etcetera, decline. Because yet, for the average citizen, of course, things things are awful. I mean, the latest inflation numbers, inflation and Myanmar, year to date, to September 28%. The cost of food is up 130%. Since the since the coup, incomes have are flashing, in fact, actually even declined. So incomes more or less across the board declined in 2023, even compared to 2022, which will cause much further down from 2021. So, if we look at things like rising prices, falling incomes, lack of employment opportunities, you know, that the average citizen in Myanmar is just considerably worse off than they were before. But, you know, extends even beyond that, I think I mentioned earlier about the government's focus or the government, the regime's focus is just to, you know, get resources to themselves, basically. And we can see that in the budget allocations. So increases in in, in military spending, for instance, is 60%, up from before the coup spending on health and education are down 15%. And these were already incredibly low level. So even before the military took over, health and education expenditure were rising dramatically, but there was still below world averages. Now the catastrophic ly below world averages and you know what one of the terrible metrics for me in my was always that the the, the show that's government spending on health and education put together, well, less than military spending. And that's an incredible outlier, internationally. But if we look at it now, not only our health and education expenditure combined less than military spending, they're actually only half of military spending. So you know, Myanmar is right out there. When we look around the states of the world, in terms of the lack of contribution of the state, to the people, it really is extraordinary. I mean, there's that old joke, you know, about a military in search of a country. And that's really what we looked at when when we've got the, you know, the the the military and in no seats is a service to the to the country anymore. I mean, it really has a country to service its needs, and really nothing else, you know, seems to be a consideration.
Brad 39:17
Yeah, that I think it was originally Voltaire, who said that while while most states have a military, the Prussian Empire is a military that has a state. And quite opposite, quite opposite in this case as well. Yeah, I think. But so that's even even then, like some of the numbers you're quoting, it's it. It almost seems like the reality on the ground is even more dire than that. Because you look at the discrepancy between the exchange rate between the chat and the dollar, as provided by sort of official moneylenders. And then you look at the exchange rate that people on the street are actually willing to exchange for. There is a pretty big difference there like I've I've heard exchange rates as high as you know, 4000 chat even pushing up towards 5000 chat to $1. Whereas pre coup we were looking at something in the vicinity of about 1500 chat to the adult. So the the actual official figures, if anything seem to be underselling how dire the situation is. Petrol is another one that that seems to be increasingly just not just expensive, but physically very difficult to source. And that's putting people in a worse and worse sort of situation. And we all have that 28% Inflation is horrific, but it almost feels like it's a miracle that it's that low. It you know, we saw a rush to buy US dollars, we saw a rush to buy gold. We've seen people express numerous times their lack of faith in in the military back Myanmar chat the military backed financial institutions. Why is it that we haven't seen a complete collapse of the currency and just hyperinflation out of control?
Sean Turnell 41:05
Yep. It's a great question. And in many ways we have, and and you've hinted at the answer, which is that a lot of economic activity has retreated out of the formal sector and into the informal sector. And it's retreated into simply unavailability of goods. So inflation is always a funny number, because of course, it measures things that can be recorded. But if things can't be recorded, and people are not spending, you know, they might have spent $100 on it last year. But if this year, they're spending nothing on it, because it's not available, that's not going to show up in the inflation numbers. So you're absolutely right, the retreat of people into if you like their own family space, personal space, informal economy, economies, amongst friends, amongst local communities, etc. That's what we're seeing in Myanmar on top of all this other stuff. Also, just on the inflation, though, it is worse, even though even worse than the official numbers suggest. But but still using the official numbers, because when we say that inflation is 28%, this year, of course, that's on 35%, the previous year, and on whatever the present was gigantic. Remember now, the year before that, so if you like it, it's yeah, it's accelerating much more than it looks. But also, I think you touch upon another really important thing, which is the this widening gap between what used to be the official exchange rate of 2100. Jack to the dollar, and what you can really buy $1 For him, Myanmar, which exactly you said, you know, can touch 4000, at times. And I think this whole area is just fascinating to watch at the moment, because I'm sure people would have seen it announcement a couple of weeks ago, that the central bank was effectively abandoning that fixed exchange rate that that guarantee that they would provide us dollars for 2100 jet for selected people. And those selected people were basically the fuel importers, but they broke even that commitment to two weeks ago. So we're looking at something really interesting going on here at the moment, which I think is suggesting that this struggle for foreign exchange is getting even more desperate, because in a sense, what the regime is telling people now is that we cannot provide foreign exchange even to our friends. So we've had to abandon that, that rate, that fixed exchange rate of 2100 to one US dollar, we we've had to abandon that. It's a bit unclear at the moment, like everything is in this area, you know, I think that this whole area of foreign exchange, etc, is, you know, characterized by two things. One incredible uncertainty and a lack of clarity, into extraordinary volatility. So the regime keeps changing the rules on surrender requirements on what exchange rate different people can use, et cetera, et cetera, et it seems to be changing week by week. And the pace of the change was a week by week, it almost seems to be coming daily now. So I think they all always, though, reflects, again, that central point, that they're desperate for foreign currency, and they're trying to work out, how can they do this? You know, do they? Do they put the restrictions ever tighter, but that then sees more people try and flee the net? Or do they try and loosen the net a little bit in the in the hope of gathering more funds in aggregate? I would imagine it's a real dilemma for them.
Brad 44:27
But so let's let's look at this because we even the last time we had the interview, we discussed the importance of both mechanical impact on economies and faith based impacts on economies. When you have a central bank that is changing its own policies this regularly or reneging on its agreements, when you have a central bank that overtly instructed Myanmar enterprises to to default on their payments to foreign institutions. The trust in Myanmar's institutions and in the regime's economic policies is going to go to zero, whether or not the mechanical impacts are dire. And they are, the trust in the system is going to drop. What impact has that had on the military regime's ability to pursue its economic policies?
Sean Turnell 45:19
Extreme. So, so much of this is self defeating? You know, I spoke about the collapse in foreign investment and so on. But, of course, of course, it's going to happen, you know, if you've got a government, that signals to private sector actors, that they should ignore property rights and not pay debt. I mean, it really is amazing, in a sense, the the regime is urging its own private sector to default on debt. And, you know, so you then ask yourself, Well, who would extend a loan? I mean, even in normal times, it would extend the loan to an enterprise in Myanmar. So which then undermines the, you know, the real fundamentals of capitalism, which at its heart, a property rights, I mean, there's nothing in capitalism, as important as that. So if you start dismantling that, you start to dismantling everything, and so yeah, exactly, as you said, I mean, this is undermined very much the military's own ability to conduct these activities, but you know, for short term need over the long term, but also, you know, the damage that it does to the country long term, profound as well, you know, it's, yeah, again, if one was to just look at the regime and say, Well, what are their economic policies about, and apart from the idea of just Ghana, gathering for themselves, as much resources as possible, it's difficult to see anything, you know, that there certainly is no long term vision. But there doesn't seem to be any medium term vision either. It just seems to be this, this need to scramble right at this moment for as much foreign exchange as possible.
Brad 46:54
Because it's in like, in my language, we have an expression, this basically means like thief economy, right? Where you're just, you're not actually trying to have a perpetuated economy, you're trying to rip up and extract value today, even at phenomenal negative impact tomorrow. And, and I know that I've asked this question before, and I've asked this question of so many of the guests that we've had on and it's just something that I still can't wrap my head around. Why is it that the military defeats itself? Why does the military continue to make decisions and policies, which objectively and measurably fail, they fail not only to benefit the nation, but they failed to even achieve the military's own stated objectives? And these are exact repetitions of policies that they have enacted in the past, and they have the exact same result. This is beyond doing the same thing twice and expecting a different result. This is this is distressed, self destructive. Why would they do this?
Sean Turnell 47:59
Two things, I think, number one desperation. So the short term matters more than any medium or long term that is, by definition off in the future. So that is number one. But the second one, which is perhaps even more important, which is the mindset. So what they've really tried to do apart from this desperate need for resources, and they've been guiding policy towards that end. It's a mindset of creating a military command economy. So in the short term, it's useful for certain things, but in the long term, that is the vision, you know, I cannot imagine that a guy like Miramar has any understanding of the importance of property rights. So I don't think it would even be something that would occur to him the whole idea that people have incentives that, that market economies are consensual based and, you know, trade in rights. I mean, this is a guy who basically people under the military have no rights, you know, is he's an old fashioned military guy, poorly educated, whose view of the economy I'm sure is nothing more than his view of the military more broadly, which is that it's about moving resources here. And they're by order, you know, you don't have to worry about trade offs, you don't have to worry about creating incentives or respecting other people's property rights or anything like that. He's world is a world of orders, and unfailing. Obedience to those orders, you know, and that's why I think he gets frustrated, you know, he doesn't really understand what why are these people doing this? Why aren't they obeying orders? And so, you know, I think that that's the sort of mindset if you're creating a military command economy and one that again, in in the sort of feverish mind that he must have the sort of based on blind obedience. Anything that frustrates that is in turn incredibly frustrating to him. So yeah, I think You know, for, for him and and other people in the regime, a lot of you know, they just don't get it. I think that that's number one. But then that I suppose that there are other opportunities around it as well, you know, there, there are people who can take advantage of this situation, for their own benefit as well, who might be able to see the bigger picture, you know, and understand that this is not good for me and Matt, but in the short term, they can probably make a profit for themselves or, or climb the greasy pole within the military or whatever it is. So, yeah, so unfortunately, I think we get we get into the realm of, if you like, non economic decision making for the economy, you know, so so it doesn't make any sense at all, if we think about what good economic management but might be, but it might have a terrible, inexorable logic of its own, within another sphere, you know, and that other sphere, again, might be, you know, the internal politics of the Myanmar military, or, or whatever the cohort is around me know why.
Brad 51:03
But it's just, it's this extreme of the petulant, self righteous, self important, angsty teen, have, you know, leave me alone, and let me do whatever I want to do. Because I'm me, and I should be allowed to do whatever I want to do, and you should exist for the benefit of serving me. And you will do what I tell you to do. Because I've told you to do it. There's this, you know, craving for absolute power and authority. In recognition of the fact that fundamentally, you don't really have all that much relevance and power and authority. And it just sounds like the military has basically taken all of the people who have failed to discard this mindset, as they've grown and matured, and put them into one room. And they're all just reinforcing this concept that will, by virtue of us saying that something should work, it should work. But you can't, you can't do that, like, you know, the USSR had very similar problems. Soviet leadership, can force humans to do certain things, but you can't force the laws of nature and physics to bend to your will. It doesn't work that way. And they learned that the hard way, and the Chinese Communist learned that the hard way you it just continues to perplex me. Yep, that the military would do this.
Sean Turnell 52:28
Perplexes me do. But the year that the willingness, though, of certain people to try and reshape human nature, you know, it's historically doesn't seem to have a lack of supply, unfortunately. But yeah, I think that's right. You know, and, and, again, you know, I don't if I try to understand them, and I think it sort of behoves us to try and understand their mindset a bit. It's sort of the, the, the thinking of the barracks, you know, the order of the barracks. So I'm, again, I'm sure for a lot of them, they genuinely don't understand. And here, I'm not talking about atrocities and things like that. I'm sure they do understand what they're doing on that front. But but I think on many of the things we're talking about to the economy, the subtleties of what a good economic management requires, is just something that's not in the lexicon. It's not something I think about. It really is a command and control system. And I, you know, I think they are probably just perplexed that it could be anything else.
Brad 53:28
And so let's let's look at the people who are not strictly within the military, these cronies who operate around them. This is a very interesting dynamic as well, because this is something that we see, for example, in Russia, you have these powerful oligarchs, who have become very wealthy through the permissiveness of a corrupt government, that has allowed them to centralize. But the flip side of that coin is, if the government makes decisions that are going to tank the economy than these oligarchs are also going to see their value drop. And there is a turning point or there seems historically that there is always a turning point where you go from the oligarchs supporting the government in everything it does, because the government is allowing them to centralize more and more and more assets. And then you hit that point where the oligarchs realize that, at this point, the government can be as permissive as they want. But their policies are reducing the value of the assets that I've spent decades accumulating. And I no longer want the government to continue pursuing its own policies. I want the government to pursue my policies, because I'm going to lose everything that I have, and a lot of cronies, you know, have been targeted by sanctions and been limited in their ability to move internationally. Why would these, these people who do operate within businesses who must have some understanding of the economic impacts of these these absolutely short sighted policies and edicts? I think we could probably call them why would they come? You just want the military?
Sean Turnell 55:02
Oh, I think it's a mixture of things I bet above all, just self interest and desire to protect themselves protect their families go along with things. In some ways, a little bit like the the way that people think about going in or Ponzi scheme, you know that there was short term money to be made. But I'll get out when the going gets tough, even if it means, you know, getting out of the country, getting the family out of the country, which brings up the whole issue. Of course, a lot of them are having a bed each way. They got the kids in educational establishments around the world, they've probably got an exit strategy, things like that. Yeah, making do. But a lot of them, of course, see the advantages, you know, so one of the things military's done by, you know, eliminating a lot of foreign competition, there will be some businesses in Myanmar, that will actually have the local market to themselves. So there would be some, you know, who would really be advantaged likewise, those with, you know, close contacts with the military and perhaps producing goods that the military would would need? who are benefiting from the system as well. So yeah, that there'd be a lot like overall self interest, of course, I think would rule more generally. But within that overall umbrella of self interest, I think you would have ones who are out there really profiting, profiting on the situation. And I think we've seen the emergence of new cronies, who were very much out there on that, as well as some of the old ones, of course. But under that umbrella, too, would be a group of them that I would imagine who must look at the situation and see utter madness. But thinking, Gosh, we've just got to survive this, you know, keep our heads down, this will pass and we'll be back to normal. But it's a great question, because it's something that I often think about, because, you know, during my time of helping the NLD government, we were criticized and lobbied all the time by businesses, who were looking for faster reforms, you know, better economic policies, higher growth rates, etc, etc. But, you know, a real acceleration, if you like, of good economic policies and all that, and it was good that they weren't pushing the government on that. But I've been thinking about people doing now. Where, you know, the gap is just so absurdly large now. And yeah, I can only imagine the horror that must come to their minds in the quietness of their own spaces.
Brad 57:32
And so with a view to the future, then returning to the national unity government and returning to the revolutionary forces. What is the plan here, because you've got a country that is economically just ruined, right, this was the only country that didn't have a bounce back post COVID, like all of the other Southeast Asian countries, not only recovered their COVID losses, but actually accelerated above them as it as is often the case when you have a period of economic depression. Myanmar continued its economic decline, where we're talking about inflation, if inflationary figures are annually in the high 20s, low 30s, then, you know, back of the envelope calculations, inflation would be almost double at this point, over the period of the entire coup. And, of course, the the international investment has fled, because they have no faith in the system. Telenor is, again, a very good example of this when the military decides that it's going to regulate you into compliance, you have no choice but to pick up and leave. And what is the the revolution doing to try and set the stage for an economic recovery? Because there is no way that everything is just going to magically disappear?
Sean Turnell 58:53
No, absolutely. So I think the most important thing they've done is to signal that they have an economic vision, that they have an economic turn of mind if you like, and that the madness will stop. And so, and this is why I feel just a little bit optimistic about Myanmar, if I may, which is the policies, the regime has been so bad, that as soon as the stop, there'll be a natural bounce back really quickly. And I don't believe I'm being Pollyanna that she needs. So for instance, you know, 70% of the budget deficit now is funded by printing money that can be eliminated very, very quickly and easily because we know that because the NLD government did remove it completely. And the the mechanisms that we've been talking about that the N ug have been putting in place are exactly to that end. So So if we look around the place cutting military spending, obviously the big one, you know, when we talk about health and education being starved of funds, when we talk about the scramble for foreign exchange, we talk about the chaos of the different types of exchange rates all All the rest of it, all that madness comes down to the one central point, again, which is we've got a military that doesn't really care about the economy, they just care about getting resources to themselves, remove them, then, as the central actor, and a lot naturally come back, you know, so but but which is not to be unrealistic? I don't think so. So, but you know, I am suggesting big bounce back, particularly in the domestic economy, the International thing I'm much more worried about, because I think, exactly as you've highlighted earlier, the things like the, you know, the regime urging people not to pay their foreign debts and all that. It's going to be incredibly difficult to convince big international corporations to come back. Say for telling or, you know, someone like that, I mean, how on earth do you convince big entities like that to put at risk billions of dollars, that sort of dollars at the moment will need to reinvigorate its telco sector, it energy sector, above all, etc. So all that's going to be really tough, but I do think that some really fundamental things could be turned around really quite quickly. So yeah, I'm a little bit optimistic on that, actually. And, again, I hope not unreasonably so because we've seen it before.
Brad 1:01:19
But so looking at the not not so much Myanmar itself, but looking at these foreign companies. Do we have any indicator from them whether or not they view the revolutionary forces, the national unity government, so on as trustworthy because the military is, is a laughingstock? Right, it is, none of their promises are worth the paper it's written on. And that is a very literal truth. But we've never had a Myanmar that is liberated from military oversight and control. We that that is new ground to tread. And it makes sense for the civilian population to say, hey, we want to excise the military from all economic decision making a political policy. We want to have Freer markets, we want to have, you know, telecommunications infrastructure that is actually good. And that does not just spy for the government. You know, we want to have these opportunities. But does anyone in the international corporate community look on that and take it at face value?
Sean Turnell 1:02:25
Well, I think they should, because I think this is the critical issue, right? I don't see any good future economically or in any other way. For me in MMA if the military stay around and have the influence they did. And I think that goes to the point that you raised, right, which is that Myanmar has never had that clean slate. So all the way through the NLD period of government, the military is always hovering, and international investors. You know, let's say the military would have aren't voluntarily give up power but remain, you know, the sort of same role that they had under the previous government. That's, that's not going to cut it anymore. You know, it's not going to cut it for Lima people, most importantly, but I don't think it's going to cut it for international investors. Because I think quite rightly, as with the Myanmar people, they were thinking, well, one of these guys is going to come out of the barracks again. So it won't be enough, something like that, which, and I'm not sure whether this makes me pessimistic or optimistic. But it seems to me that the victory of the democracy forces in Myanmar need to be complete. It can't be a halfway house anymore. But I do think there's an economic angle to that. Because, yeah, in the absence of that, I think we can forget about the likes of Telenor and so on ever coming back to me.
Brad 1:03:39
So to clarify, you're effectively saying that, if the revolution were to end with a compromise or a power sharing agreement between the civilian forces and the military, as has historically happened numerous times, the international corporate community is just not willing to fall for that again,
Sean Turnell 1:03:57
I would think so. Particularly that at the big end, small scale, yes. Because, you know, we see that in all sorts of places around the world. extractive sector again, certainly, but perhaps even small scale in other ways to retail, blah, blah, blah. But yeah, the big sort of ticket investment, I cannot imagine that, you know, if you were the the Risk Officer in a, you know, major international corporation, looking at Myanmar as a place to source you know, a labor force or as a market, etc, you're just not going to put the serious money down. If there's even a hint that the military once again, could so easily just come back.
Brad 1:04:35
Okay. And so, let's let's ride your optimism for a little moment here. Best case scenario, right. Let's say that the revolution succeeds and numerous people that I've interviewed and that I've been speaking to off record as well have have reiterated and approximate six months figure for the essential end of the revolution and the victory over them. Military, except for potentially maybe two itself. So if that were to come to pass, you know, next year, May or June, best case scenario, what do you think Myanmar can hope to receive from the international community? Whether this is corporate, whether this is government, whether this NGO, and what do you think Myanmar would need? In order to correct for the military's decades of mismanagement, and start selling the country on a on a growth path?
Sean Turnell 1:05:30
Yet? Well, again, the the biggest step would be the military's complete removal. So if that was the case, then I think all the other reforms become much more credible. You know, I mentioned before that the reforms are fairly straightforward, you know, because, again, the military policies have been so disastrous, correcting for them, technically, intellectually, pretty easy. But the big thing is, will they be credible, are people going to believe them that people in Myanmar gonna believe them, and people internationally going to believe them, but it's a military exam of the figure, and they do become much more believable, you know, things like printing money, etcetera, leading, but if the, if the military budget is not, you know, doubled in size as it has most recently. So there's a whole range of things that seemed to me can be done quite quickly. And as I said, I would expect quite a strong domestic bounce back, they would be a lot of sort of dead capital at the moment. And would you mentioned a little while ago, when you're talking about movement of funds, or movement of wealth, outside of the national currency into gold, stored commodities, things like that. So, you know, once trust starts to be established, and again, that's what we'd like to see with the full removal of the military from, from power, you know, things like that just begin to open up and from that, it becomes a virtuous circle, if you like of cascading events, suddenly, the non performing loans in banks, etc, you start to get solutions. On that front one, once you have things begin to open up once property rights are respected and central once you can actually assign real valued property and, you know, various other things. So, yes, I do think the bounce back could be quite quick. There will also be the release of exactly as you said, a lot of international money. I'm not, I'm a little bit cautious on that, because I think the world has less money, unfortunately, because of all sorts of events around the world, you know, the same lack of attention on Myanmar would would still exist them, they'd be, I mean, a wonderful series of stories for a week, maybe a couple of weeks of a new era, and all that. But you know, then things would sort of rub back into place, and Myanmar would go down the list of international attention again, but But nonetheless, they would be released of resources and energy and concern for the country at that point. But at a practical level, it also be the release of instant resources, we began talking about the the money in the Federal Reserve. Now there's a billion knows when to start, you know, that could be released instantaneously. But there's other funds as well, actually, because they were big programs that were being put in place by the World Bank, as you know, so the, the $1 billion dollars is the IMF a lot more money in the World Bank, a lot more money in the Asian Development Bank, a lot of projects that that, you know, could could kick up reasonably quickly, without even having to rely on any extra deliberations over aid to Myanmar, you know, so there's stuff that would all be tappable. Really, quite quickly. But yeah, but but I think even under the best case scenario, we'd still be looking at a little bit of time before, we would see a big turnaround in foreign investment from the private sector. I think, you know, most private sector outlets would sort of be looking at Myanmar and thinking, gosh, you know, we've got burned before, do we come back or, you know, just observing the situation.
Brad 1:09:03
So they wouldn't be queuing up to jump into that economic vacuum and be the first to capitalize on it, they'd be sitting back and waiting to see whether things look like they're going to be profitable down the line.
Sean Turnell 1:09:15
I think so because I think also the world itself has changed, you know, the world is a much less optimistic place. The international economy is much more iffy arena now within which for a country like Myanmar to emerge you know, some of the the easy wins the countries in Asia were able to pursue in becoming the you know, Asian Tiger Economies jumping on supply chains, all of that. There may be some scope for me tomorrow, man, I don't want to discount that because would still be the major Avenue but it's much more difficult than it was a lot of activities with you know, technological change and so on even over the with each passing year. Technological change, of course, renders a lot of activities obsolete. So so we be tougher, it wouldn't be the easy ride that some of the main mass neighbors and peers were able to have. But But they'd be something there, you know, because there's a lot of reshoring going on. There's a lot of, well, not not not so much reshoring, but divergence of supply chains, etc, away from China, which Vietnam has been the primary recipient of but the market grabbed some of that action perhaps. So, yeah, but but it would be still a difficult environment that the global one went alone what's going on in Lima?
Brad 1:10:29
So do you have an approximate sort of timeframe for how long you think it would take to return to pre cool economic levels?
Sean Turnell 1:10:37
are really quickly, I would say within a year? Oh, really? Yeah. Because well, it's 10%. Below already. So, which is you know, shocking performance. So the economy's 10%, below 2019, as it is now, but but I would expect growth of, you know, 10%, in that first year back without too much drama. And again, not even with much policy, to be honest, just just a return of people, return of funds return of those projects that I mentioned. And then, you know, growth on top of that more sustainable growth thereafter. But I think they really would be a bounce back very, very quickly. In a range of areas, so yeah, so I think closing that gap within the year for sure. Yeah, I don't think I've been wild. Hopefully, that doesn't come across as well. Because I do think that that's very achieved, in fact, I think, be very disappointing if if that didn't happen, I think it would mean that something else was going wrong.
Brad 1:11:42
But still, it's very good news to hear, it definitely gives a lot of sort of hope for the future of the country. And if it is true that the revolution is going to be won most likely, in about six months, the notion that Myanmar could return to its pre coup state, in about a year and a half from today.
Sean Turnell 1:12:02
I should have won one proviso is that of course, the opportunity lost, there's still been vast, you know, so it will take a few more years. So I'm just talking about getting back to 2019. But of course, what what we've really missed is the growth of should have taken place. Well, not not so much. 2020 equals COVID and impacted, of course, things like that. But yeah, 2323 I mean, me and my shoot have had, you know, very high single digit growth. And that, you know, was easily doable when one would have thought again, particularly coming back from COVID. So, so, so the foregone opportunities are just awful to contemplate, and that'll take a bit longer. But yeah, but getting back 20 to 2919 levels one year. Good. really expect that very quickly.
Brad 1:12:50
Let's look, I think that's still a very positive outcome, I think there's still a very good goal to have and and a belief to hold, suddenly a lot faster than I would have anticipated considering just the shocking state of the economy as it stands today.
Sean Turnell 1:13:07
So I suppose to share the ideas, why is that? Because, you know, you've got me thinking about the return and all of that, I think, but again, on the basis that the military department has seen me and my has every reason to feel confident. And I say that because I think some of its steps in 2016 2017 were quite tentative, you know, looking over its shoulder, at the international community, feeling its way, et cetera. And here are this really just allows me to get back onto my hobby horse, if you like, which is just how impressive some of the young policymakers in Myanmar are. They're scattered all over the world now, but they'd be the sort of people who would return much quicker than the money will return. They know what to do. That's why my confidence in getting back to at least 2019 level of economic activity. That's really where it's founded on more than just about any anything else. But yeah, but they know what to do, they can do it, and I think they will do it.
Host 1:14:22
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