Myanmar’s foreign investment by-laws
will not incorporate any measures on land prices, Director General Aung
Naing Oo of the Directorate of Investment and Company Administration
said.
During the commercial and investment
discussion between Myanmar and Thailand on December 17, Aung Naing Oo
said the land price issue is a major factor in foreign investment
growth. He explained that since land prices are normally determined by
the market, it is difficult for the government to intervene, control,
and fix the prices. The by-laws will be finalised by January 2 next
year.
Earlier this month, Minister Soe Thein of the President’s Office vowed to control land prices.
“Both industrial land and condominium
prices are going up. When I study how Bangkok controls their land
pricing, I found that they have a committee for it. The committee
determines the price. But the committee cannot do it on its own. It will
have to coordinate with the government,” he said.
Soe Thein said price control committees
will be formed in Yangon and Mandalay cities first. “In order to be
transparent, they will publish the prices of buildings in newspapers.
They will also put a vinyl of prices on the buildings. If a foreigner
wants to buy a building, he can calculate it himself at current exchange
rates. There should be no special treatment for foreigners, and [this
method of] transparency will encourage it.”
Local businessmen are buying lands in
strategic areas for capital gains from land markets, rather than setting
up factories and doing business. Such manipulations have lead to nearly
three-fold to seven-fold increase in land prices under the current
administration, a real estate agent said.
For instance, prices in Thilawa area in
Yangon in 2000 were at 40 million kyats (US$47,600) an acre; now it has
reached up to 200 million to 300 million kyats ($240,000 to 360,000).
Property prices in other industrial
zones like Hlaing Tharyar have also gone up, from about 150 million to
170 million kyats ($180,000 to $200,000) to 400 million kyats ($476,000)
today.
source: Eleven Myanmar
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