Deserted Asian capital may finally start to come alive thanks to China, expected to be first country to open an embassy there
- Naypyidaw’s motorways are almost always empty, giving city the feel of an eerie film set, but once China moves its embassy to Myanmar capital others may follow
- Until now, getting diplomats and civil servants to leave the comforts of Yangon has been all but impossible, as city lacks public transport and other amenities
When Chinese President Xi Jinping paid a state visit to Myanmar last month he may have been impressed by the government’s tight control over traffic in Naypyidaw.
“They closed off six roads in the capital for three to four hours, before and after his arrival, and for hours during trips to the hotel,” says a Myanmar employee of a multilateral organisation with an office in Naypyidaw. “This would have been impossible in Yangon,” he adds.
Not that it made much difference. Naypyidaw’s six-lane motorways – and one 20-lane boulevard – are almost empty most of the time.
Fifteen years after it was announced that Naypyidaw – or “Abode of the King” – would replace Yangon as the country’s capital, the city still has the feel of an eerie film set, waiting for the actors to arrive and for shooting to start. However, there are signs that the place is coming to life, but slowly.
The diplomatic community, for one, may be finding it more difficult to avoid a presence in the capital since China opened a liaison office in Naypyidaw in 2016. It was the first country to establish a permanent presence there, and will probably be the first to open a fully fledged embassy there, something likely to happen soon.
Naypyidaw’s embassy zone is 276 hectares of largely unoccupied scrubland, vacant barring a few farmers who have refused to accept the government’s pay-offs for relocation. City authorities claim to have reached settlements with the farmers and are ready to replace them with diplomats.
“Five or six countries have already bought plots in the zone, including China,” says Ye Min Oo, vice-mayor of Naypyidaw and vice-chairman of the Naypyidaw Development Committee. “And some other countries have booked plots.”
Bangladesh, Brunei and Malaysia are among those that have secured land for diplomatic buildings, according to local news reports.
The regime approved the relocation the night before announcing its decision to move the capital to Naypyidaw, 300km (185 miles) to the north, in November of that year. Construction of the new US embassy compound in Yangon went ahead and cost about US$65 million.
Ahead of elections in 2015, there had been serious debate within Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) over whether to move the country’s capital back to Yangon should they win. The relocation to Naypyidaw had, after all, been primarily a military initiative, one prompted by fears of an invasion by US forces.
The NLD won by a landslide and Suu Kyi became State Counsellor, or de facto leader of the government, but Naypyidaw was to remain the official capital.
Still, embassies decided to stay in Yangon, which is not the most modern of Asian metropolises but a cosmopolitan mecca of five-star hotels, international-class restaurants, shopping malls and adequate medical facilities when compared with Naypyidaw.
Suu Kyi made clear in a speech in February 2018, at a meeting with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, that her government would prefer embassies to move to Naypyidaw, and had big plans for the city’s future.
“State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi told us that she wants Naypyidaw to become the heart of knowledge for the country,” says Ye Min Oo, who is also a non-elected NLD member, adding that this meant nurturing interest from educational institutions, both local and international.
The Naypyidaw Development Committee has already allocated 121 hectares of land to the Ministry of Education to set up five universities in the fields of medicine, engineering, IT, business management and tourism, and is in the market for foreign help to set up international universities.
South Korea has agreed to fund a comprehensive university for multiple disciplines, Japan is interested in funding a tourism university, and Thailand’s Khon Kaen University is talking about opening a medical college in the city, Ye Min Oo says.
In September last year the International School of Yangon opened a Naypyidaw branch. Initially it will teach from pre-kindergarten to year eight, presumably for international students and Myanmar students whose families can afford the tuition fees.
The initiative could change the atmosphere at Naypyidaw’s most popular hotels, such as the Hilton, Kempinski and Park Royal, where many expatriates now live and where their children may also be forced to hang out once there are bigger and better schools in the capital.
Foreigners are not yet permitted to live outside the hotel zone, and no special housing has been built for them.
The Hilton Nay Pyi Taw, base of the US embassy liaison office and the World Bank, is deemed politically correct because it’s owned by Myanmar’s Eden Group, founded by Chit Khine, one of Myanmar’s more reputable businessmen. Most of the more than 30 hotels in Naypyidaw were built by cronies of the former military regime, some of whom were on a US blacklist and prevented from engaging in business with US firms.
In general Naypyidaw’s hotels are a bargain, with rooms in decent three-star ones costing as little as US$25 a night with buffet breakfast thrown in. As for foreign tourism, until the current coronavirus scare, Chinese were one of the few nationalities drawn to the capital by its cheap accommodation, with shopping for jade and gems the main attraction.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is one of the only international organisations to have set up its local headquarters in Naypyidaw, moving there in 2014, when its aid programmes in the country were fully renewed. It chose the Park Royal complex, which is building an annex for the regional development bank to expand its operations.
However, even the ADB doesn’t have a solution for Naypyidaw’s mass transport challenge.
“There is no population here,” says Shihiru Date, an ADB senior transport specialist. “A concentration of people is a factor for a mass transit system and it is not happening.”
Naypyidaw’s total population is about 1.1 million – compared with 10 million in Yangon – about half of whom are civil servants and who live in special residential zones. Fleets of buses take them to their offices and back home every day.
“If a bus is late the whole office opens late,” says one Naypyidaw resident, who asks to remain anonymous.
For non-civil servants, Naypyidaw transport is expensive. A one-way flight between the capital and Yangon costs 100,000 kyat (US$69) for Myanmar nationals, but a taxi to Naypyidaw’s airport from the city is another 20,000 kyat. The average civil servant’s salary is 100,000 to 200,000 kyat a month. The same flight for foreign nationals costs US$100.
If city officials are serious about attracting more people to the capital, they will need to do something to bring travel costs down.
Oway Ride, a Myanmar ride-hailing service similar to Uber and Grab, will soon launch an operation in Naypyidaw, according to Ye Min Oo, and that should lower taxi fares. But to justify a mass transit system such as public buses, Naypyidaw will need a much bigger population, and it is something city officials are working on.
A pilot project launched in December 2019 to sell plots of land to outsiders at relatively low prices, has been fairly successful; most buyers are believed to be business operators.
“We announced that we would reserve a block, selling 197 plots, and 328 people said they want to buy,” Ye Min Oo says.
Getting Yangon-based Myanmar families to shift to the capital, given its limited services, schooling and entertainment venues, is still a hard sell, though, even for Ye Min Oo.
“My family stays in Yangon but I have discussed it with them – please move to Naypyidaw,” he says. “The weather is nicer and there is no pollution. The water is OK. There is no traffic. Here we can make an appointment with everybody within 15 minutes.”