Infrastructure Quality
The country ranked 129th worldwide in a 2012 study of logistics by the Washington-basedWorld Bank that assessed benchmarks including quality of infrastructure. Thailand placed 38th, Vietnam 53rd and Cambodia 101st.
About $320 billion needs to be invested in infrastructure by 2030 if the economy is to expand 8 percent a year, according to the McKinsey study. Transport networks are insufficient to support growing activity, the Asian Development Bank said.
While loading a 20,000 deadweight-ton vessel with rice takes about four days in Thailand or Vietnam, the task can take eight days in Myanmar at present, said Kiattisak, the director at Ascend Commodities.
“Myanmar certainly has the potential to become one of the leading rice exporters, if not the leading one, in the medium run,” said the FAO’s Calpe. “It is one of the few countries in the region that faces no land, water or labor constraints and it is strategically located, having China and India as neighbors.”