Corporate Tax Payers Get Warning

China to Boost Yunnan Infrastructure

Myanmar’s economy is about to face stiff competition for investment from the neighboring Chinese province of Yunnan, according to an industry report.

Yunnan is currently the third poorest of China’s 31 provinces, with per capita income of only US$4,050 in 2014, oil and petrochemicals magazine ICIS reported.

The Chinese central government is spending over $24 billion in Yunnan to improve the province’s infrastructure, including 932 miles (1,500 kilometers) of new highways.

The aim is to make Yunnan a key component of Beijing’s plans for a so-called New Silk Road, analyst John Richardson said in an ICIS report on the province’s development.

In an effort to tighten up Myanmar’s loosely enforced tax system, nearly 200 domestic companies were warned in February that they faced de-registration for evasion.

The Directorate of Investment and Company Administration (DICA) said a total of 197 firms in Kayin State and Tanintharyi and Bago regions would lose their legal standing as of Feb. 28, after several years of skirting payments.

The announcement, published on the directorate’s website, instructed companies set to be delisted to contact the Myanmar Investment Commission before the end of February to settle outstanding debts and re-register.

Section 247 of the Myanmar Company Act grants the directorate authority to revoke business licenses for tax evasion.

DICA collaborates with the Internal Revenue Department (IRD) by reporting the total number of companies that applied for business licenses throughout the fiscal year. The IRD then calculates the disparity between total businesses and corporate taxpayers.

U Saw Swe, assistant director of the Yangon Division IRD corporate tax collection department, said the city alone had 4,913 companies that had yet to pay their taxes as the registration deadline neared. Some had not paid in as many as three years.—Kyaw Hsu Mon

CORRECTION: In a story titled ‘‘Hurdles and Wins for Emerging Business’’ by contributor William Boot, published in the January edition of the magazine, some information was incorrectly attributed to the Yangonbased business advisory group Consult Myanmar. In fact Consult Myanmar was not the source for any information in the story, and the contributor made an error in attribution. The Irrawaddy apologizes for the error.

“China will increasingly buy basic raw materials, such as oil and gas, from its less-developed neighbors. It will then re-export finished or semi-finished goods, such as chemicals and polymers, to these neighboring countries,” Mr. Richardson said.

Yunnan’s geographical position connects its borders directly with Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar, and via the Mekong River with Thailand and Cambodia.

In addition to the twin crude oil and gas pipelines now operating from the coast of Rakhine State into Yunnan, China is continuing negotiations with Naypyitaw to expand its oil transhipment port at Kyaukpyu, which it also wants to link to Yunnan by railway. —William Boot

‘Thousands’ of Migrant Workers in ID Scam

Thousands of forged identity cards may have been issued to Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand in return for bribes by labor agents, a report has claimed.

A Thai district administrator in Kanchanaburi Province on the Myanmar border, Sattha Khachapalayuk, has filed a complaint with Thai police in which he identified more than 400 allegedly false ID cards, the Bangkok Post reported. The complaint names local government officials in two Thai provinces who are alleged to have forged papers for migrant workers, the Post said. The allegations go back to 2006.

“[Mr. Sattha] said the documents he gave to police clearly showed 421 cards had been illegally issued although he believed there might have been tens of thousands of forged ID cases in Kanchanaburi alone,” the Post said.

The Post quoted a senior police officer saying the complaint would be forwarded to Thailand’s Public Sector Anti-Corruption Commission. —William Boot