YANGON, May 11 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi has called for working together with the private sector to achieve the country's development goals, while ensuring the maintenance of a responsible and sustainable business environment.
In her video message on the occasion of the Yangon Region Investment Forum 2019, which began on Friday, Aung San Suu Kyi affirmed her belief in the power of collaboration to achieve the development goals, encouraging investors to consider public-private partnership (PPP) mechanisms.
She emphasized that trade and investment remained the two major drivers of Myanmar's economic development, citing that investment in the manufacturing sector represented 31 percent of the total investment in fiscal year 2017-18, while there was only 0.3 percent in 2010-11. The sector's contribution to the gross domestic product (GDP) reached 24 percent in that year.
The Yangon Investment Forum was the second of its kind designed to allow domestic and international investors to gain first-hand information about investment potential in the region.
According to statistics, in the first seven months of the fiscal year 2018-19 which began in October, 2.54 billion U.S. dollars of foreign direct investment flowed into Myanmar.
Yangon region accounts for 25 percent of the national gross domestic products, growing at an average rate of 9.2 percent year-on-year.
The region also takes up 85 percent of the total foreign trade, having attracted a total of 20.2 billion U.S. dollars of foreign investment from 845 enterprises up to the fiscal year 2017-18 since 1988-89.
The region's population is predicted to grow from the current 7 million to 10 million by 2030.
