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Organizer: Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand and NYSEAN

Description:

Myanmar has emerged as a key node in various illicit economic activities in Southeast and East Asia, driven by surging growth in demand and operations of transnational criminal organisations as well as domestic operators.

The scale of illicit profits is vast and continues to grow. The regional methamphetamine trade is estimated by U.N. agencies to be worth up to $61.4 billion annually and heroin up to $10.3 billion. Trade in illegally extracted or smuggled natural resources is worth billions more.

Casinos in the region are proliferating as key mechanisms for money-laundering and as lucrative revenue streams in their own right for non-state groups and organised crime. While much of the profit from these illicit activities remain outside Myanmar, taken together, they are worth many billions of dollars annually within the country.

While the licit economy of Myanmar and surrounding countries suffered hugely from the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, many illicit sectors have stayed resilient and some have even thrived. The February 1 military coup further devastated Myanmar’s formal economy, but has given a hefty boost to many of the country’s illicit economies, especially the drug trade and natural resources smuggling. This has fundamentally set back previous efforts to bring peace and better governance to the country, and replace the illicit political economy with better regulated and more equitable economic activity.

What do such trends mean for the lives and livelihoods of ordinary people, as well as the economies of mainland Southeast Asia? This panel brings together experts on Myanmar’s economy, politics and illicit industries to discuss the country’s post-coup economic trajectory, new data on the recent surge in drug production and the spillover effect on neighboring economies.

Speakers:

Jeremy Douglas, United Nations Organization on Drugs and Crime, Regional representative, Southeast Asia and the Pacific

Richard Horsey, independent analyst and Myanmar advisor, International Crisis Group

Gwen Robinson, editor at large Nikkei Asia and senior fellow, Institute of Security and International Studies

Moderator: 

Panu Wongcha-um, FCCT president

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