The International Finance Corporation announced on Tuesday that it has provided a US$ 5 million trade finance facility to locally-owned Myanmar Oriental Bank Limited that will allow the bank to help local companies increase their imports and exports, generate more foreign exchange, and create jobs.
This facility will enhance MOB’s capacity to cover the payment risks of exporters’ banks while granting trade financing to local companies, mostly small- and medium-sized enterprises, IFC said in a statement.
“This trade line will help extend our capacity in providing financing to local importers and exporters – an area that is still new to us, ” said Kyi Kyi Than, MOB’s managing director, adding that becoming a part of IFC’s extensive trade network is key to the bank’s reputation and expansion of international transactions.
IFC will also support MOB through advisory services to strengthen its corporate governance and trade finance operations. MOB is the first bank in the country to join IFC’s Global Trade Finance Programme, which aims to promote trade in emerging markets by linking local financial institutions with major international banks. It also enables local lenders to offer more competitive financing.
More than 550 banks from 150 countries have joined the programme since its launch in 2005.
IFC’s resident representative in Myanmar, Vikram Kumar, said the facility marks the beginning of IFC’s support for local banks with capital and advisory services. He said it would help develop Myanmar’s financial sector and ultimately improve access to finance for small- and medium-sized enterprises, which are key drivers for economic growth and employment in the country.
“By boosting MOB’s capacity to deliver trade-finance solutions, IFC is helping improve trade flows that are vital to enterprise growth as the economy opens up, ” said Kumar.
IFC is supporting reforms and investments in the Southeast Asian country to strengthen the private sector and create jobs to reduce poverty and boost shared prosperity. As a member of the World Bank Group, IFC is the largest global development institution focused mainly on the private sector.
Source: www.myanmar-business.org
Globalization with Reason
by fourtheweary Governing Globalisation
An interview with George Monbiot, by Caspar Henderson of openDemocracy
George Monbiot, the leading environmental activist and writer, has been involved in many global campaigns of resistance to corporate and state power. But what positive social and political vision animates his work? Where does it contrast with that of globalisationâs advocates like Maria Cattaui, Peter Sutherland, and George Soros? And how does he see the future of the internationalist movement in the light of the âwar on terrorismâ? (v. long)
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Caspar Henderson â openDemocracy has opened a debate on globalisation
Globalization from Below
by fortheweary March 18 2001
Globalization from Below
by Patrick Bond
(Review of `Globalization from Below: The Power of Solidarity,' by Jeremy Brecher, Tim Costello and Brendan Smith, Cambridge, MA, South End Press.)
There are more than a dozen new english- language books aimed mainly at an audience of international-justice activists, strategists and intellectuals. I've got the pleasant task of reading these in my role as coordinator of a seminar of 20 masters and doctoral students which starts next week in Johannesburg.
Because it raises issues so well and so forthrightly, honestly considers competing arguments, I chose to make one book-- Globalization from Below--required reading (as I will do again in a similar seminar at York University in Toronto this summer)
Cooking the Books
by stock What drives companies to 'cook the books' â or lie about their earnings
just how widespread this problem might be. How much of the global economy is based on 'smoke and mirrors' book-keeping
a genuine weak spot in the financial system that could ultimately lead to a meltdown? These are interesting questions for people to ask and it is especially useful for to identify such weak spots. Book cooking is a topical issue in the wake of the implosion of the amazing disintegrating known as Enron.
Both inside and outside the financial world people are asking the question 'How many more Enrons are out there?' we first look at the pressures behind book-cooking with a glimpse at the Wonderland of Accounting
