Singapore’s Sembcorp Industries has been cleared to build a USD 230.4 million industrial park in Hlegu Township. The firm will develop the industrial center with Myanmar partners MAPCO and City Mart Holdings, according to the Myanmar Times, which reported that the park will mainly host food-related industries. Construction was supposed to begin in March, but the approval process was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Although agriculture is an important industry for the country, it has little in the way of mills, canneries and other infrastructure to process downstream value-added food products. This has begun to change, albeit slowly. For example in 2018, Yoma Strategic Holdings built Myanmar’s first vegetable cannery in Taunggyi, the company’s then-agribusiness director Dr. Tin Htut Oo told Frontier. MAPCO and City Mart Holdings are two of the country’s largest food-based companies, and their investment (15% and 18%, respectively) in the park could indicate an expansion of their own food product processing and manufacturing.
In terms of foreign investments, Sembcorb has already built a USD 310 million power plant in Mandalay Region. The new Hlegu development comes after an announcement of a USD 180 million shopping mall by Japanese retail group Aeon, which was granted approval this week. Although China remains Myanmar’s largest investment partner, Singapore, Japan, and Thailand have ramped up investments in the country, especially in southern Myanmar and around the Thilawa Special Economic Zone.
