Report on Entrepreneurship and Small Business in Myanmar Economy

This report, prepared by a student, examines the landscape of entrepreneurship and small business management in Myanmar. It begins with an executive summary highlighting the importance of managerial techniques and understanding business requirements for success. The report delves into different types of entrepreneurial ventures in Myanmar, including small businesses, startups, and social businesses, and analyzes their similarities and differences. It explores the impact of small businesses on the Myanmar economy, including tax revenue and currency exchange rates, and emphasizes the significance of SMEs and startups for social and economic growth, including poverty alleviation. The report also discusses the role of women entrepreneurs and the challenges they face. The analysis uses both primary and secondary data, drawing on sources such as Census.gov and various academic publications, to provide a comprehensive overview of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Myanmar. The report concludes by emphasizing the vital role of SMEs in the country's economic development and the importance of regulatory mechanisms and initiatives to foster their growth.

Module Name
[Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management]
Submitted To:
[U Aung Lin Zaw]
Submitted By:
[Khant Zaw Lin Win]
[ Student ID – 2018A7209]

Executive summary
Adopting managerial techniques seems to be beneficial for the entrepreneurs in
terms of setting up the business in an effective manner. Understanding towards the
business type and requirements is crucial for achieving the impacts accordingly. This
assignment takes the example of Myanmar for shedding light on the women
entrepreneurs and their impact on the economy as a whole. The focus is mainly on
the social development with due consideration to the needs of the community
people. Different types of business venture ideas enhance the creativity and
imagination skills of the entrepreneurs towards establishing the business in the
competitive ambience of the market.

Table of contents
Introduction...................................................................................................................2
Types of entrepreneurial ventures in Myanmar............................................................2
Similarities and differences in the entrepreneurial ventures in Myanmar....................3
Impact of small businesses on Myanmar economy.....................................................4
Importance of small businesses and start-ups on the growth of Myanmar social
economy.......................................................................................................................5
Conclusion....................................................................................................................5
References...................................................................................................................7

Introduction
Like other professions, entrepreneurial ventures contribute to the economic
development. This profession enhances the creative thinking skills and abilities of
the personnel. The style of approaching the operations, broadens the perceptions.
Entrepreneurial ventures act as an agent for attaining economic growth and
development. In this context, reconstruction of the natural resources and wealth is a
tactful approach for aligning the performance to that of the requirements. There are
different factors, which affects the entrepreneurial ventures. These are social,
technological, economic, political and personal among others. According to the
arguments of Burns, (2016), risk and innovation are the aspects, which differentiates
the regular businesses and entrepreneurial ventures. This assignment attempts to
prepare a report on the entrepreneurial ventures in the threshold of Myanmar, with
special emphasis on the economic growth and development. For proposing the
arguments, both primary and secondary data collection and analysis methods is
used.
Types of entrepreneurial ventures in Myanmar
The major types of entrepreneurial ventures are small business, scalable
start-ups, large company and social business. These ventures add to the
economic growth of the countries like Myanmar. According to the revelations of
Census.gov (2020), Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) is considered to be an
effective agents in terms of job creation, wealth creation, reduction of poverty and
others. Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) are developed for improvising on the
focus of the business operations. The percentile for SME’s is 50-95% of the total
employment. The contribution towards economic development is 30-53% of the GDP
in the ASEAN member states. According to Bala and Feng (2019), factors like
international isolation and inadequate investments in the private sector reflects the
preference towards making plans for regional developments. Intervention of the Free
Trade reduced the dependence on the government tariffs, which aggravated the
complexities in terms of overseas competition.
Start-ups in Myanmar is numerous, adding to the economy of Myanmar.
Diversity prevails in this start-up business, which is reflected from the use of social

media platforms for increasing the trafficking of the audience towards the brand
image. Example can be cited of the brands like Oway, Daung Capital, Shwe
Property, Flymya, Hintha Business Centre among others.
Social businesses also exist in the threshold of Myanmar in the form of NGO
operations. Myint (2018) is of the view that the main aim of these businesses is that
of expanding the scope and arena of corporate social responsibility. The outcome of
these businesses have been upliftment in the standards of living for the community
people. Charities and funds act as an agent in terms of catering to the needs,
demands and requirements of the community people. Reference can be cited of Hla
Day, which takes pride in offering a secured platform to the local artisans,
disadvantaged groups and small businessmen to earn a living.
The corporate groups in Myanmar cater towards solving the community
problems, which are effective for gaining trust, loyalty and dependence from the
clients and customers. Mention needs to be made of the brands like Max Myanmar
Group, KBZ Group, Shwe Taung Group and Asia World, which adopts sustainable
working practices for accomplishing the identified and specified goals of emerging as
a market leader (Census.gov 2020).
Similarities and differences in the entrepreneurial ventures
in Myanmar
Entrepreneurship can also be segmented as individual and corporate. Both
these kinds of entrepreneurship aim to explore the opportunities of accumulating
greater market share through the launch of new products and services. In case of
the individual entrepreneurs of Myanmar, the personal risks and their tolerance is
high. On the contrary, Ling et al. (2019) states that corporate entrepreneurs have
less risks, which are managed through the acquisition of the risk assessment and
management frameworks. Individual entrepreneurships have full control over the
business, which is missing in case of the corporate entrepreneurship in Myanmar,
due to acquisitions. Along with this, autonomy towards decision-making process is
also low, which is a challenge in terms of establishments.
If the individual enterprises in Myanmar is considered, then the important
factors are human and social capital, which forms the identity of the business. On the

contrary, Andrews et al. (2019) opines that access to the corporate resources
formulates the ideas of enterprise business ventures. The teamwork is limited in
case of the individual enterprises in the threshold of Myanmar. Corporate culture and
structure is essential in terms of defining the size, trends and scope of the corporate
enterprises.
Miklian (2019) is of the view that individual entrepreneurships lack stability in
the employment opportunities. The income is also irregular, which is a difficulty in
terms of daily sustenance. Control over the ideas generates self-organizational skills.
On the other hand, corporate enterprises in Myanmar lack full ownership of the
newly launched products. The culture and structure of these enterprises results in
effectual reasoning, assisting in execution of the outcome and impact analysis.
Inclusive practices are effective in terms of providing a platform to the entrepreneurs
to establish their ideas. Creativity is an important element in this context, which
drives the performance of the candidates towards professionalism (Wun 2019). The
focus of this entrepreneurship is on the affordable loss than expected returns, which
helps in detecting the areas in which modifications are needed.
According to the revelations of Myanmar.gov.mm (2020), there exists a very
small portion of female SME ownership in Myanmar. The sub segments of this
population accounts for 88% of the registered establishments and 61% of the total
employment opportunities. Aung (2018) highlights the barriers of dealing with the
bureaucratic, which arises from the low educational level, underrepresentation of
women in the senior position. These themes act as a challenge in the process of
developing the business. The gender ratio of men and women entrepreneurs in
Myanmar is 1:2, which is managed through the implementation of regulatory
measures enforced by International Labour Organization (ILO) (Myanmar.gov.mm
2020).
Impact of small businesses on Myanmar economy
Small businesses have negative annual turnover, which are usually avoided in
terms of achieving growth and development. In this type, most of the businesses are
service oriented, where the target audience are the dealers operating in the domestic
market. Successful necessity entrepreneurs are considered to be the largest
contributors towards the success of the SME’s. The growth in the annual turnover is

low, that is, 0-10%. There are 8 full time employees, who are less likely to operate in
the manufacturing sectors and export. Small and growing business have moderate
annual growth in the annual turnover, which is accounted as 10-20% (Census.gov
2020). Communication with the clients is done in the form of offshoring, which
expands the scope ad and arena of the supply chain network of the retail business.
Fig: Tax revenue rate of Myanmar (2019)
(Source: Census.gov 2020)
According to the annual report of 2019, the tax revenue of Myanmar was
recorded as 280.477 USD, which was strikingly a reduction from previous months’
recording. Investments in the foreign exchange is controlled by the Foreign
Exchange Management Department, catering to the aspects of borrowing, repaying
principle and interest. The growth rate of the commercial taxes is 0-8%, which is
considered as the turnover taxes for the products and services. The imposition rate
is 5%, which is known as output tax and is enforced by the tax authorities.
Satisfactory conditions in some of the cases results in registration for claiming the
input taxes.
Fig: Currency exchange rates of Myanmar
(Source: Census.gov 2020)
The exchange rate of Kyat against the US dollar is weighed according to the
interbank conditions Bank-customer trades are controlled by the authorized dealers
of the banks. Burmese Kyat attains the top most position in the currency exchange
rates.

Fig: List of currency rate rankings
(Source: Census.gov 2020)
Importance of small businesses and start-ups on the growth of
Myanmar social economy
Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) is the greatest contributor towards the
economic development. Creativity in this context is effective in terms of adapting to
the altering conditions of the market. Sarker and Pe (2017) is of the view that this
alignment is assistance for catering to the specific demands of the clients and
customers. One of the benefits in the social parameter is, that of, the poverty
alleviation schemes, which is an initiative towards improving the standards of living
for the community people. Such schemes result in makes the nation wealthy (Bala
and Feng 2019). Governmental interventions add value to the schemes, which is
reflected from the policies, frameworks along with the rules and regulations.
Cooperation is needed from the personnel of the state, regional, national and state
level. At the current stage, the focus is on globalization of the services. Increase in
the import of the substitutes has significantly reduced the price of the commodities,
providing an easy access to the people to acquire the products of daily sustenance.
Myint (2018) highlights that one of an important outcome of this situation has been
increase in the job opportunities, luring the candidates to invest in the services. As a
result of this, the per capita income and GDP shares has drastically increased.
Conclusion
Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) is the greatest contributor to the
economy of countries like Myanmar. Regulatory mechanisms are supervised by the
governmental agencies like International Labour Organization (ILO), which results in
the achievement of effective outcomes. Necessity businesses conglomerate with the
large corporations, which helps in adding stability into the businesses. Schemes like
poverty alleviation is effective in terms of enhancing the scope and arena of the
corporate social responsibilities.

References
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cronyism in transition: understanding changing attitudes to business corruption in
Myanmar. Asia Pacific Business Review, 25(4), pp.554-570.
Aung, T., 2018. The Bumblebee Doctrine: Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises as a
Force for Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in Myanmar. In Sustainable
Development Goals in Southeast Asia and ASEAN (pp. 331-347). Brill.
Bala, H. and Feng, X., 2019. Success of small and medium enterprises in Myanmar:
Role of technological, organizational, and environmental factors. Journal of Global
Information Technology Management, 22(2), pp.100-119.
Burns, P., 2016. Entrepreneurship and small business. Palgrave Macmillan Limited.
Census.gov 2020. About us. Available at: https://www.census.gov/programs-
surveys/ase.html [Accessed on 27th Feb 2020]
Ling, R., Parekh, P., Zainudeen, A. and Galpaya, H., 2019. Rationalization of mobile
telephony by small-scale entrepreneurs in Myanmar. Information, Communication &
Society, 22(3), pp.420-436.
Miklian, J., 2019. Contextualising and theorising economic development, local
business and ethnic cleansing in Myanmar. Conflict, Security & Development, 19(1),
pp.55-78.
Myanmar.gov.mm 2020. About us. Available at:
https://www.myanmar.gov.mm/en/government-website [Accessed on 27th Feb 2020]
Myint, Z.Z., 2018. Impact of creativity and innovation on success of Myanmar women
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Sarker, T. and Pe, S.S.K., 2017. Myanmar. In The World Guide to Sustainable
Enterprise (pp. 98-104). Routledge.
Wun, N.S.L.P., 2019. Impact of strategic planning on organisational performance of
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