New | Daunting Myanmar mining risks keeps investors to a brave handful
For now, Myanmar is the domain of small, wildcat companies specialising in high-risk frontier investment
With abundant mineral wealth from jade and rubies to copper and coal, Myanmar ought to be looking forward to a mining boom as it opens up its economy. But long-running insurgencies and a murky regulatory framework are holding back all but the intrepid.
Foreign investment in the Southeast Asian country as well as home-grown development were held back by 49 years of military rule that ended when a quasi-civilian, reformist government took office in 2011 and started courting investors.
The security and regulatory risks remain daunting, however, and although 69 foreign firms have registered to work in Myanmar’s mining sector, only 11 are operating.
One of them, Asia Pacific Mining Ltd (APML), has been granted an exploration licence covering 650 square km (250 square miles) in restive Shan State, where it hopes to find deposits of lead, zinc and silver.
On January 5, APML announced that its first month of exploration had yielded "significant discoveries of massive sulfide silver-lead-zinc mineralisation" and said it expected to start exploratory drilling by April.
APML’s concession surrounds the Bawdwin mine, which CEO Andrew Mooney said was the world’s largest source of lead and zinc in the 1930s.
Despite its prospects, Myanmar’s risks will probably deter big firms from investing any time soon, Mooney told Reuters.