 Felly, mae'n grannu yma yn ysbyt ychydig i ddim yn gweithio'r hosbiddl o'r bwysig, ond ychydig y ffaith ymddir i'r cyfnodd ymddir i'r cyfrannu? G seniorsiad yma, mae'n gwybod i'r cyfrannu? Mae'n rhaid i'n mynd i'n gweithio'n llawr. Mae'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio. Mae'n gweld ychydig i'r hynny, rydyn ni'n gweithio'n gweld i'r cyfrannu? Ac roeddwn i'r cyfrannu John Brown, John Brown, cyfnodd y CEO yng Nghymru, y British Petroleum, yn 1997 ar y Stamford Business School, gafodd y cyfnodd, ac rydyn ni'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio. Mae yn ni'n gweithio'n gweithio'n ddefnyddio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio. Ie, we overcomplicated, and I think what we have to do is just simplify it, and I think it's very simple. It has sort of said it in a different way, doing good is good business, and I think John in his speech many years ago actually focused on it. Now, if you look at us in the context of Myanmar for a minute, you know, what are the sort of things that we're trying to do here, Asiat y galler ni chi... Mae'n rhan o'n yn ei bwysig i ddweud i bobl, ar safnodd gyda bod yn gyngor, ond roedd yn gwybodol yn llawn. Rwy'n meddyl iawn, oed yn y linog fel 17 blion ddaeth, nad yna brinweithio ddaeth o'n 10 blion, eich ymgylchedd yma. Yn weithio a llawd yn cyd-gathol, yn unig yw dal. Gweithio, ac yn cyfeithio ymgylchedd, mae'n dweud o'n 450 miliwn ddaeth yma, ac yn cyfglawn. a we're talking about 20 times more in people. So what have we done so far in Myanmar in the last few months since May the 20th of last year, and we were planning this before because we maintained our relationships. Although we were forced out by NGO activity and shareholder concerns, share owner concerns about what was going on in Burma at that time, we maintained contact and were prepared for the situation where sanctions were lifted. Not dissimilar to the situation we found in Vietnam in the early 90s, where actually we had a first mover advantage being British based, we had a first mover advantage over the Americans. So we have acquired a stake in a local agency. We have aligned ourselves with another local agency, advertising agency. I just want to, nine years ago you were here, you were involved, you were long-term obviously then, you were forced to leave. In that absence, what has changed in your mind about how you do CSR? I was going to come on, if I went back and drew the comparison to South Africa, for example, in the times of apartheid, our clients took a very different attitude. I always remember Bill LeMouth, who was the chairman and CEO of Kellogg's, the serial corporation, took the view that it was better to be inside, working on the inside, rather than say two of our other clients like Ford and IBM who left the country, the businesses were rebadged, the brands were taken over by local interests. So in a way, I would always argue, better to be inside the tent, working, it's a bit like the EU argument in a different sphere, better to be a member of the club and try to change it if you believe that the rules are wrong rather than being outside looking in. In the case of Burma, it was so acute, and the situation was so acute, and the pressure was so significant. I don't think you had any other choice other than to be outside. But we prepared for the time when things would change. You actually said that there was no other Asian economy, that this is the last Asian economy, I think it was you who said, and North Korea is another one. Well, I've thought long and hard about this, but I think that at some point in time that might change, but smaller scale, 22 million if I remember rightly, so a third of the scale that we're talking about here. But anyway, I think it's best to be within sight, so better in than out. So that's the first thing. So what we're doing is building, we have a media business here associated with, a PR business, public relations business. So that's the thing. Second thing is that the industry that will have a major effect on the development of this country and might be an obvious and biased, is obviously media. In our case, not media ownership because we are third parties agents. Media ownership obviously is fundamental and the license system may be changed over time. At the moment, the media is concentrated in state hands and private hands, let's say that are aligned to the state. But the allocation of the telecoms licenses, which were submitted what two days ago will be adjudicated on or around June the 27th, obviously will be a critical determinant of the growth of the digital industries. Serge and I debated this on the CM, sorry to mention the CMBC and the same thing, but the CMBC debate a couple of days ago. So clearly our industry will be a major player in changing the attitude in the context of the media. The third thing, a lot of work is done by our people in what we call the sustainability area, not just with our clients, working with our clients on sustainability programmes. I like you, dislike the language somewhat, we call it sustainability, but our people are very much involved. So we produce a sustainability report every year, have done it for the last 12 years, on what our clients do and then what we do. And it's a big motivating factor for the people in our own company and a big differentiating factor for each of our agencies as to what they do in the sustainability areas. Can you give us an example, a quick example? Well, I mean the Special Olympics, Tim Shriver is on a board, this is not the physically disabled people, these are the mentally affected and Tim, this is the Special Olympics, the Shriver family, we're instrumental in building it around the world, it operates in virtually every country of the world and it's a very powerful, we have 165,000 people in 110 countries, it's a very powerful motivator for getting, no, the same can be applied to cancer charities and all, we worked for Solil on Amnesty International, we were just discussing a campaign that was developed by Ogilvy for Solil, so these are examples of motor and differentiating because younger people particularly, not only, and you see it in the social media, are attracted to companies at the rate, and the last point is people development. We will be coming into this country and trying to help people develop skills in the media areas obviously because that's our business, but as a fundamental part of that is the education process. So take China for example, we have set up with the Shanghai Municipality, a WPP advertising school, the deal with the municipality, if I can put it that way, was we would get naming rights in return for our people teaching the curriculum and us developing the curriculum. Now to show you the successor, this is within 10 months of the first phone call having taken place with the Shanghai government, we had the school up and running, and we now have 100, 150 students in the second year. Now just to show you how powerful it is, quite an extraordinary achievement, two young kids, I can call them, won a DNA prize. There are probably three award prizes in our industry, Cann advertising festival, one show and DNA. Two kids from that school have won a global prize in the second year of operation of schools, an outstanding achievement which we're very proud of and rightfully proud of. But what I'm saying is you start to develop the educational institutions and in this country, areas of advertising media journalism are going to become increasingly important. OK, well I want to come back to that as a sort of who pays for what there. Serge, you've been doing business in the middle of decades now, all of a sudden the world is turning rapidly. What do you sort of worry about if you like about, you see this, you know, a potential avalanche of international business coming in. Do you worry that they're not going to provide the stakeholder benefits, what sort of benefits should they be providing if they're going to come here? There's been a lot of talk about stakeholders' benefits and shareholders' benefit. There's been a lot of talk about what the FDI would do. There's been a lot of talk about what protectionism would do. But I think we should embrace the fact that stakeholders' interests and shareholders' interests need not be divided. They could be inclusive. Having worked in China for many years, I would very much like to prevent what happened in China in the very beginning years of opening up. I mean, in this room there are many, many multinationals and many foreign investments that went to China in the very early days. And without too much exception, they were all slaughtered more or less. Nobody made any profit. Most lost money. I like to prevent that to make sure that investors who come to this country are not disadvantaged. That's number one. But in the same token, I like to also ensure that when they come in, they're responsible. And the big talk is CSR, responsible businesses and so forth. And I really think it's very important because if you cannot be inclusive and if you cannot protect the interests of the Myanmar people coming to do business here, you're actually not doing us a favour and you're not doing yourself a favour because it will not be sustainable. And therefore, we would have to work on the same platform. I think the buzzword or the sexy word that everybody says is CSR. And CSR, let me put it this way. The Myanmar nation actually has some characteristics that is quite admirable. For instance, our people are used to giving. The Myanmar people, particularly our Buddhists, we're used to giving alms to monks every morning. Giving is a natural thing. During 2008 when we had the Nagis, I think there was what the world, the West Sea, is this fight between the multilaterals, the aid donors and the government, the stand-off and so forth. We're going to talk about the cyclone here in 2008. The cyclone. What we see on the ground is some very, very moving, touching, moving things. The whole country rallied. There are people, individuals, companies, all going out on their own without much coordination by the government to help the people that were affected. This is a cultural thing. It's a cultural thing. If anything, I think the people on their own did a lot better than what the government organized. And I'm sorry to say that many people may not like it, I'm not sure who's around this room, but the fact is that when governments get involved, they're actually thinking of the media, how they want to put it on the new light of Myanmar, more than how they want to save the people that are dying. And that was something which the people didn't like. And they went out and they saved lives. So we have this CSR culture embedded in individuals, in companies. Are you seeing people coming to you now with deals, as I'm sure they are, but talking about that CSR aspect of the deal or do you have to bring it into the conversation to say, if you're looking at a partnership with me, for example, I'm expecting? The vast majority of foreign interests have come to Myanmar, I think, are responsible. They are actually very conscious about doing business in a proper way. But as I said this morning at the conversation, breakfast meeting, I think I'd like to reiterate one point, which is rather close to my heart. And that is that if you look at the last 20, 24 months of our reform, we have seen all the reforms in political and social. Economic reform has just started. We haven't even got our financial law in place. We haven't got our new central bank law in place. But we've got our labour law in place. We've got our press freedom in place. We've got the land rights bill in place. If you look at other big economies, emerging economies, it was as long as 25 years before China dealt with labour law after they opened up. You're talking about civil society going first, aren't you? So basically everybody say, let's get the economy going. The workers' rights will come later. And maybe that's a warm-up. This is a new model. It has to be, doesn't it? If you look around this region, it has always been economic development first. And the trickle-down. We have it around the other way around. OK. So little I'm going to hold back with you for a moment because I'd like to get Eddie talking about Dow chemical manufacturer. As I said, you spent, well, Dow spent $3 billion in Thailand. That required a big buy-in. What did you do to guarantee that you could maintain long-term relationships with the stakeholders? And how much did it cost you? Well, first of all, I agree with what Serge mentioned that you cannot separate between the social responsibility and the business. So it is Dow principle that we always have to give back to whatever we operate, including in Thailand, for example. So to answer your question now, Thailand is our biggest footprint, not only in Southeast Asia, but also in Asia Pacific. So last year, we just completed our investment, about $3 billion. Why we make decision on Thailand? It goes back about the environment of investment, are very, very favorable. We have a very good local partner that we can trust, could able. We have been partnering with Siem Samhain for more than 20 years now. We have a strong buy-in from the corporate also that you have to be in Asia. You define where you want to have your footprint. But find a good partner, find a good cost position and find a local market. So that is how we end up late 70s in investment in Thailand. We start with small plan, but we expanding over years. And last year, we completed $3 billion. One thing I would like to add on here is when we invest in a country, we don't just bring the capital, we don't just bring the job, of course, but we also bring the best practice in terms of worker safety, environmental production, and also energy efficiency in production. And we also want to make sure that whatever we do is value-add local community. So that is why when we talk about value-add, it's how we value-add on, for example, I attended yesterday, half day of energy forum, is indeed that Myanmar is in great need of energy. Everything is less than 30% of the population have access to electricity here in Myanmar. But my message would be, number one, how to explore and maximise the resource, but don't forget also how to create value-add locally to the resource in Myanmar. Just give me one clear example of how you added to the local resource, how you helped. I'm not talking about just the trickle-down money and people working there. Actually, softer stuff. Right, I mean, one of the good examples is Dao. Probably a read in a newspaper to Dao has been collaborating closely with the US government in terms of sharehold gas policy. Sharehold? Sharehold gas, energy policy, LNG export. We are not saying that we should ban LNG export because the world needs cheaper energy. But what we would like to say is, look, you have to think about long-term balance between public interest in the US, for example, what they want to do to monetise the sharehold gas offered to LNG and export, but at the same time also how to value-add this LNG, how to value-add the natural gas to spur more manufacturing in the US. Yep, yep. Which is, again, that sort of trickle-down thing, isn't it? So you've listened to the panel so far, talking about buying human capital. What, in your opinion, amnesty, what are the fundamentals that companies now cannot ignore when they come into a place like Myanmar? I think the first thing I wanted to say is that this country, the people of this country, have had a very raw deal over the last decades. So whatever we do, whoever is intervening, whether it's companies or NGOs or international institutions, we have to approach it with a profound sense of responsibility to the people of this country. They've had a raw deal in terms of denial of fundamental freedoms, living and grinding poverty and conflict. So it's an amazingly rich country inhabited by some of the poorest people of the planet. So I think that's very important for us to remember. Now, what we are seeing in the last two years is some really enlightened leadership, also facing serious economic pressures and international pressure. I mean, amnesty international was never allowed to come into this country. The fact that I'm sitting here is already a testament to that. Sitting around this concentric circle are people, prisoners, who amnesty has campaigned for for their release, who have been tortured. I'm not going to name names and they're sitting here in front of us. So amazing things have happened. There's much more media freedom. They've released a lot of the political prisoners. But having said that, yes, they're monitoring internet cafes less, but the public broadcast news is still controlled by the state. And peaceful protest is crushed. Many, many examples of that. We still have credible reports of violations of both human rights law and international humanitarian law. So the point I wanted to make is that there's a historic deficit and nobody should think that suddenly things have changed. I mean, people are trying to change it at the top. It's going to take a long time. So businesses need to be very aware that rule of law in this country is work in progress at best. So and I'm saying this because why is this relevant for businesses? Because rule of law, let's just think of what happened in Bangladesh last month. So I'm glad you brought that up. So I mean, if businesses think that that's a government job, we're not really interested in that, that's not what the public think anymore. If a building collapses, okay, the Bangladesh government should have taken care of that. But you know, governments don't take care of a lot of things and people don't really care as to who's responsibilities. They feel that the supply chain should have been monitored by the businesses that the companies involved should have put pressure. And it doesn't matter how many schools and how many health clinics those companies had built. They're still very concerned that human rights issues had not been taken care of by the corporations. Yeah, just on that point, this is a really good point of talking about Bangladesh because my question was going to be should Myanmar think about legislating CSR rather than leaving it to you to decide just what largesse you're going to dole out? Because we all know that Wall Street works in mysterious ways and profits rule still. We saw what happened in- It's not profits rule. Long term profits rule. But we're talking about a short term... No, no, no. I'll take it. Let's take the oil industry as an example. If your objective is to rip as much oil out of the ground and the shortest possible period of time without worrying about in the environment, fine, I agree with you. But all oil corporations, all energy corporations are in business for the long term. And if you don't bear that in mind, you're in trouble. So when you say Wall Street rules, that's not true. I mean, you know, there are enough indices. There's enough pressure from... Forget about NGOs for a minute. From the shareholders themselves, the share owners themselves, the basis of which they make their investments and sustain their investments. There's enough pressure there. Should it be legislated to answer your question? The government can help get down. But essentially business has to... Self-regulation is a far better solution than imposed regulation. It's a far better solution on paper. And, yes, it works in many jurisdictions. But it is not a silver bullet, as we constantly see. So if you are doing best practices every... this panel here, and you probably are all doing... I'm sure you are doing best practices, the legislation will not impact you. What about having that legislation at a basic level for other? Andrew, can I... I just want to complete my point because, you know, first of all, I don't want to give any impression that it's not important for this country to attract investment and businesses. There's a real opportunity, and the resource curse, which we have seen in many other parts of the world, could become a resource blessing for the people of this country, if it's done right. Now, in relation to what businesses need to do, in some ways it's just common sense. We call it human rights due diligence. But companies do due diligence anyway. So essentially it's to say that before you start an operation, before you take an action, think about what the possible impacts are on the people. And if there are negative impacts, you need to put in place a mitigation plan. Now, I agree with Martin that generally speaking, if you get governments involved in this, they tend to make a big mess of it. But in this case, in the context of Myanmar, I think if the government is not regulating this process, you know, you could have a whole other set of challenges. So I think it's too risky to make this completely voluntary. There has to be a process of regulating the human rights of that point. But I'd like to make one point. Primarily remember if the country has remained poor, it has to come off of its poverty. The only way it'll come out of its poverty is if it creates new jobs. And these new jobs are created as a function of two things. Investment to create opportunity. And second is building capacity and training that is education and help of the population. When you look at both these, it becomes inevitable that we must have policies that will invite investment and have a very fast growth rate because only a very fast growth rate is an inclusive growth rate where everybody comes out faster out of poverty. Whilst doing that, we need to be careful. And this is the responsibility of the business. There are some areas as Martin put it where legislation may be necessary when it comes to some environmental control. But when it comes to corporate responsibility, I think it must be left to the individual. And best practices will be shared and you will find the success that it brings. We'll actually spread it more. You use the word trickle down. I don't think these things are trickle down. Prosperity comes at the end of development. In the middle, it doesn't look like it's prosperous. In certain parts. But that's the only way it comes. There's no other way just because you make it inclusive that it will come right away. So creating those jobs fast enough, making sure there's investment in education and health and then making sure that with best practices, companies actually follow them. You will find that they will need them in order to do good investment. And then I'm not against the word sustainable. It's social. But if you just think about, you know, penetration of the internet in this country is what, five, six percent, mobile 30 percent. With the growth, that's why these telecoms licenses and greater independence for the media and the withdrawal of the license system will be critically important because that's part of the microscope that is placed on business. I mean, when talking about supply chain, every company that has a problem with its supply chain because you at CNN or social media or whatever point out that problem, the pressure is there. What in Myanmar at the moment, you don't have the openness yet that you have in other countries. You know, cell usage, social media usage are very much in their emphasis. But it was an interesting case, wasn't it? We had somebody yesterday in the media group who had created an application, the circulation on his newspaper is 10,000 a week or whatever it is or month. He got 110,000 app applications within one hour and a half. Now, that shows you a little bit about the power of what we're talking about. And as that opens up, the pressures will be there from NGOs, like Amnesty International, from the media like you, from domestic media, which have been freed up and become more independent. So I think you could argue that Myanmar is a bit of a special case at the moment, but in the course of time it will revert to the mean. On your question of whether we should legislate it, I think we should. It's always good to have good legislation. CSR would be a very important part of social development. But I think sometimes when things go wrong, it's so easy to just point the finger and blame everybody. You can have the best legislation of how to build buildings, but I can assure you that it will not eliminate the possibility of one building falling down because one particular developer or builder cut corners. It happened many years ago in South Korea, the most advanced economy. It happened in Bangladesh. In South Korea it was a bit of a hooha, but not like Bangladesh. The unfair part is that one building collapsed and it is as if the whole country is using the same standard, which is not true. It's an isolated case, but it's always been blamed as if it was a general issue. Same thing. I agree with everything you say, Salel, and I think Amnesty International is a very important watchdog. It keeps us on our toes. It has very high bars to fulfill, but it's all very good. But again sometimes I do not necessarily agree with everything. It reports because it's like picking on an easy target, an easy scape road to a photon. Peaceful demonstrations, for instance. We should be able to have peaceful demonstrations, but are all the demonstrations peaceful? Are all the demonstrations right? It's another issue. Myanmar Times had a front-page picture some months ago, which I thought was a classic because that big picture which took about a quarter of the page was about a demonstration on land squatters and land rights, where women in the demonstration group had bamboo sticks and knives chasing after the policemen and chasing after the YCDC officials. I mean it was not like the most pictures you see is the other way, but this is getting very violent. Now, in such a case, there's no talk about it. No, but sir, if you're saying that peaceful protest is violent, it's not a question of whether it's a right peaceful protest or a wrong peaceful protest. I mean we can't... Who's going to make that decision now as to which is right? Well, that's the point. The point is that whenever there is something, it is always assumed that the government or the society is not allowing peaceful demonstration. That's like a given, which I think it's not. If you try to look at the record, at least in my view, we had a very repressive situation for 50 years and we have a very open situation for the last 24 months. More open than most societies. You can say anything you want, you can print anything you want and so forth. There's been some credit given to it, but again it comes back time and again that when there's a little problem, we go back to the same accusation that is repressive. I don't think that's fair on our government as well as what is happening on the ground here. I think this is a result of a free press, isn't it? I mean they have their rights to opinion, to have a pink pat. And allow me to make some comment on this one. I tried to bring back the business context of discussion. I totally agree about the need for having a strong and transparent policy from government, but don't forget that we also need the enforcement. So it's mentioned that you can create thousands of law. But if there's no law enforcement, it's nothing. So regulation enforcement is very, very important. It has to be science-based. And also don't forget about legal practice in the case of IP protection. So the best way for Myanmar, I know it's still in the early stage, but how to innovate, how to bring innovation to the country to Myanmar to go beyond what you have today. And of course you still have energy to solve, but how to spur more or incentivise more innovation in the country. So to do that you also need to have a good IP protection that protects manufacturing, internet, IT, whatever sector you want to grow in the country. I mean, there is so much to be done here, isn't it? I mean, we all know we are at the beginning and Myanmar is re-engaging. I want to ask, move the discussions along to doing business in Myanmar, given, and I'll start this one with you, Serge, given there has been a military rule and a lot of most businesses still control directly or indirectly or through friends, cronies of the existing previous regime. How does business come into Myanmar and do it without the taint of the previous regime being involved? I mean, it's an obviously very difficult issue, a difficult problem, but how do you do diligence on this? As a statement, I would like to say that people need to believe that we have really had a crossover, a transition, that we are no more guided the same way we were practicing under the old regime. Our presidents from the day they came to office in this inauguration speech made it very clear. Level playing field, he says. Translation, end of croniesm. Easiest said than done, obviously. It is, it is, but there is a very clear will and a very clear direction. If you look at the top, I think the top is very clean. As you trickle down, it's getting more and more difficult to clean up, but there is a determination to clean up. Do you think it's endemic in Myanmar? It is endemic in many, many countries in Asia? Well, the culture in Asia, however, unfortunately, has been inclined to do business the shortcut way, the easy way, graft rights. By the way, are you saying there's no corruption in the West? No, not at all, not at all. But there is not the entrenched corruption that you get in... People on glass houses, people on glass houses. No, I think corruption is an issue everywhere. No, hold on a second, I do find it a bit offensive. It's a sort of arrogant Western attitude. The corruption exists in Asia in... No, we'll not forget about respect. Asia, Latin America, Africa in the Middle East, I find it offensive actually, and I'm not even an Asian. But it's true. No, it's not true. There is cronyism of sorts. There are relationships of sorts. There is corruption. What about MPs and expenses in the UK? You're never going to wipe out corruption. Hold on a second, let's just be careful about what we're saying. And redress the balance. Point taken. I wasn't intending to criticize the world. No, no, no. You need somebody to defend it. How do you ensure that, though this level playing field is as open and as transparent as it should be? Well, if you take the most recent telecom spit, which Samarton keeps referring to, thank you, it is probably the first time that we have a very professional third party consultant, totally independent, to advise our ministry, and the terms of reference of the bid is as clear as you can expect. There's no margin for flexibility. Everybody bids on the same basis. There's a point system, how bidders will be awarded, and so forth. That's a very good start. And I hope that this is carried on to many other ministries who are actually doing a lot of public tenders. Today, everything you do has got to go through public tender, which is very good. So I think they're trying very hard. They're trying very hard to be transparent, to be open. I find a little difficulty when sometimes a lot is on form, and there's not much substance. For instance, a ministry is put issue tenders. So we have these few pieces of land that is open for tender, and please submit your tenders. But there's no term of reference. And when you ask what are the terms, the answer comes back saying, well, you submit whatever you want, and we will evaluate it. That's very difficult to be even handed. It's a lack of professionalism, lack of understanding what transparency and level playing field means, but it's not a lack or absence of trying. So I think we will get there soon. It's all malicious. Can I say, in terms of level playing field, and this goes back to what Mr Prudence said, that if you have rapid growth, in a sense you will have more inclusive development, now that would be true if it was a level playing field in this society. And we have to just remember, again, before Martin Research tells me that this is not unique to Myanmar, very true. There are many countries which have the same challenges. But the fact is that 40% of the country is made up of ethnic minorities, 10% religious minorities. It's also a society which is very much like the rest of Asia again, where women are far from equal. It's a very patriarchal society. So the idea that if you have a lot of growth, that it's going to benefit people at large, is actually very unlikely to happen, unless businesses make a very conscious effort to factor that in from the very beginning. Do you think there should be... But there should not be legislation. I was going to ask this question, but should companies be at least strongly encouraged for positive discrimination to get away from this ethnic mix, to get away from making it more inclusive? Well, there is a debate on it even in the United States today, whether affirmative action actually has helped at all. Maybe initially it did create enough awareness, but beyond that, has it really helped? And does it really help? While we continue to discuss affirmative action in the most extraordinary way with almost more than 50% of the population getting affirmative benefits, we are also, when you have an ordinary discussion, anywhere they feel this has not helped. It has only created pockets of vested interest. So I would be very careful when you recommend to somebody that we go down that path. But it's far too downstream anyway. Quotas and jobs are far too downstream. So what does need to be legislated is the way in which these people, these ethnic minorities and religious minorities are included in political and economic decision-making in education and health and social services, and that's what they're demanding, that they don't have a fair share of the country's resources. Are we starting to see this? Are we starting to see it more at that level, more inclusive of ethnic minorities, that they are getting a bigger say in the future of this country? The future will have to be that way. If you would like to have this country in one piece, united, you will have to address the interests of the minority. That is a foregone conclusion. I do not think you can keep them out. I do not think you can deprive them of what is right, their own rights. But at this moment, a lot of the discussion is a bit muddled between ethnic groups and religious groups. And they are two very different issues at stake. One could be settled a lot easier, the other is a lot more difficult. And I think we should realize that there is a difference. Martin, do you think... Well, I find the conversation a little bit troubling because we're at the very early stages. So if I think about WPP in Myanmar, we would take certainly a 20-year view. And echoing what Serge said at our breakfast meeting is that the glow of optimism, in fact, the lady said a few months ago that there was too much optimism and I'm balanced, I would agree with that. And I think what worries me about this conversation is building expectations to such a high level. And right or wrongly, I would liken Myanmar to the situation that we saw in Vietnam in the early 90s and just remind you of the history of I went to Vietnam early on and we had the advantage, as I said, of being British as opposed to being American-based and therefore we got in earlier. But it was that initial euphoria. I remember having meetings with clients and they were euphoric about the opportunities, 92, 93, and then we had a strong surge. It then flattened out, fell back, and then another great surge. And at the moment, the economy is under a significant amount of pressure. Nothing in life goes up in a straight line. And so there will be volatility, long-term, totally of the view that a population, whether it's 60 million, 55 million, 58 million, the census will tell us actually how many Myanmar people there actually are in 2014. But the size of the market, same size as the UK, then just by the law of averages, and there's very strong entrepreneurial talent here, there is very strong culture, education, history, art. This all, certainly in the context of our industry, it makes for an extremely positive and rosy future, but you have to be realistic about it. And to start talking about quotas, the balance when we look at the poverty in the country. Look at, as you land, you look at this capital and you see oxen and plows. And getting the balance right, I think in terms of expectation is critically important because it's going to build expectations to a level, not just from a business point of view, but politically and socially, which I think will be unrealistic. So be prepared for some bumpy, for some turbulence and fasten your seat belts because it will be difficult at times. I would like to open this up to the floor as well. So let's do that now, if anybody, sir, right here. Was there a microphone? I think you may have to shout for the moment, sir. Everything I've heard this morning is vital and important, but it's still very much 1980. Corporate social responsibility is vital and important, but it's very much 1980s, 1990s, 2000s. What we are talking about when we're talking about a company investing in a frontier market is affecting the internal relations of that country, hopefully for good, changing the balance of power between the government, its people, its civil society, changing the economic benefit and how they're distributed. This is an intervention in the internal affairs of a country, hopefully very good, can sometimes be done mistakenly. Defence companies, oil companies, telecommunications companies understand nowadays that effectively they are conducting foreign policy when they are intervening in other countries. And I would say that all companies now having to consider investing in a frontier market should call a thing by its name. And what they have to have at the forefront is the politics of the country, the nature of its society. They have to have as much knowledge of that country or more than a foreign ministry might have in engaging with that country. And especially given now the weakened leadership in governments around the world and the different balance of power between government, society, corporations, and individual actors, I would submit that unless you have a corporate foreign policy when investing in a frontier market, you're not going to be able to execute effectively that corporate responsibility which is at the heart of your business plan. I was going to ask the question what should be the corporate plan in your view investing in Myanmar? The corporate plan for investing in Myanmar or Vietnam is to understand the existing and evolving balance of power between all the agents of status and change in the country. Whether it's government, civil society, individuals, the currently rich or the prospectively rich. And for that you have to have a goal for how you engage and how you see that society evolving which is very much having a policy towards the outcome of the country. Now, depending on whether you're a small investor or a large investor, your ambitions are going to be scaled by those capacities but I think you have to put politics at the front rather than at the very rear end of your engagement. Traditionally companies have quite understandably shied away from politics because they didn't want to be seen to be engaging in political affairs. My principle argument is that politics have to be as much at the front because you're going to be accused of getting it politically wrong if you don't so you might as well have an engagement for how you are there in a political sense as much as in a business sense. Thank you. Just looking at Myanmar, the political hurdles up until May 20 last year were too great. They were too high. The political hurdles were then lowered and it became acceptable. In a way, I understand what you're saying but I disagree with it in the sense that if you're running a multinational or trying to run a multinational whether it's Thao, Hindustan, whoever it happens to be or a Singapore listed company that's primary focus on Myanmar you're looking for what I call the delta and you're looking for the growth. So if you look at the Myanmar economy it's growing at 6.5% around that level. Probably if McKinsey is right and they get the infrastructure spending right it will grow at 8%. It will become one of the most significant economies in this part of the world. So you would try and in a context of the West not giving you the growth or the delta that you need because it's top line growth that ultimately determines the success you'll be looking for this market just the way it is. It's like when somebody says to me should it be China or India and I say it's both. The answer is the BRICS the next 11, Asia, Latin America, Africa, Middle East and Central East in Europe give multinational companies growth. Now for local companies here and I sat next to somebody last night who said as a local company he felt challenged when sanctions were taken off but having seen some of the multinationals that he's had to compete against he doesn't feel quite so challenged. Rightly or wrongly I think this is the way of opening it up so I agree with you but I think you set a basic hurdle and that hurdle was lowered in Vietnam was lowered in Myanmar a year or so ago may be lowered for example in a place like Cuba which will open up Cuba but with a much lower population so I think that's what prompted it. I would just say that total in Burma or Myanmar had a stronger foreign policy than did France in Burma and when some multinationals get it wrong in other countries when Anglo-American got it wrong in Chile or when Vale got it wrong in Argentina it was not for failure of corporate social responsibility it was for failure of having a... Where I think there are failures and I would 100% agree and which shocks me given the multiple operations that we have in the world is where western companies operate in countries which have sanctions on them. So let's take Iran as an example and I'm aware of many cases where sanctions have been busted by significant western companies and that has gone along unpunished or unexposed. I find that unacceptable. So the hurdle is high and people have even jumped the high jump. Andrew, if I can... If I understand, if I interpret what the gentleman is saying Martin, you wouldn't if you were launching a consumer product you'd really like to understand what the consumer is thinking. So in that sense if you're going to launch anything in this country you need to deeply understand. So you take something like land. Many of the companies are coming here whether it's construction or mining or oil and gas. If you don't understand who owns the land in this country and what the implications are of your intervention you are very likely going to make matters worse not just for the people but for yourself as well. So I think a deep understanding I'm not suggesting you open a ministry of foreign affairs in each multinational corporation or one of the hearts of our business is research. So if you're saying should any company do basic research of course we agree with that. I'm calling a due diligence whichever. Let's move along. Do we have any other questions from the floor at this stage? Behind me sir. What would you say is the role of international business in helping me and Mar bring a lasting peace to the ethnic minorities where we have ongoing war? I I venture to give an answer. I think if international companies think that they are influential and powerful enough to make a dent on the peace negotiations feeling they are probably over exaggerating their effectiveness. This is really a very complex issue an issue that has been in existence for at least 50 years if not more. And it is unfair to impose such an expectation on a foreign company to come in and say what can you do to help us have a peace accord with the Cachins a bit remote. To me all this discussion is basically is conscience a multinational company a foreign company coming to Myanmar I would hope they have conscience conscience to do good for this country conscience to train our people conscience to to be even handed and give benefit to the vast majority of people that they serve that will guide them to all the things that they need to do they may not even need a foreign ministry in the company but if you come with a sole intention to make a lot of profit because this is a frontier market by the way the penetration of mobile phones is 9% not 20% 30% so you want to make a lot of money then that kind of conscience is going to guide you in a different path and you are going to build those over a lot of people to get to your profit margins and targets. So if we can just get more conscience which is a given Ajeet, did you add to this? I think understanding the politics of the place and negotiating your way through it is given I don't think any company that's coming here would want to do that. How much of a role to play to bring about that is not your job it is not your mandate and you shouldn't go unauthorized whether you have enough authority to actually do it you will fail. It is important that you conduct your business of providing what you are doing very well. As long as the human rights issue is enshride. But again I mean the role of the business here is the value of investment again Sirs rightly mentioned that when we bring investment locally here in IT we try to bring the best product the best technology the best solution for local people and all the effect on community will come automatically because all of us investment companies we have the same intention to give back and contribute to where we operate so it will come automatically Just an observation is that the panel all seems to agree that there is no need to write a new playbook for Myanmar about when you are coming in here it is a straight best practices Would you all agree with that? There is nothing special Would you say Sirs that Myanmar should be looking at from the international community the business community It is just as you say there are many commonalities but there are differences as well I think you know no place is the same and I think in relation to the question that was asked about peace how could businesses contribute to peace this country contributed a Secretary General to the United Nations Uthant and the UN Charter is based on a fundamental principle that you can't have peace without development and you can't have development without peace and you can't have either without human rights and that's it's kind of at one level a rhetorical statement but it's quite profound as well because one of the reasons people in this country is because they have not felt included in the development process so I think companies need to be very aware that you know that process of giving people a voice, the participation of people as you know let's say you are going into a state of mind people need to be involved in that process and that will bring peace because they will see the sense of sharing the benefits of the process But you wouldn't discourage engagement for that reason I'd encourage engagement Sir, fighting passionately Thank you, my name is Andy Forrest Thank you, my name is Andy Forrest I'm chairman of a globally supported NGO called Walk Free a movement to end modern slavery My business though, my career is business as a big fan of Sir Martins and to answer your question so I can say the best way for multinationals to help the underpriviledged, the ethnic minorities etc is to go into their state to say Rakhine State invest in them a very large manufacturer who of course contracts out all their manufacturing we would put a factory in Rakhine State as well as a factory in the other more stable parts of Myanmar in order to really encourage economic individual sustainability in Rakhine State it's remarkable how quickly fear and loathing dissipates when you can sustainably eat each day and as that fan of Sir Martins I would say Myanmar needs regulation we cannot rely on that very powerful force that's not sufficient of self-regulation the global financial crisis and the behaviour of investment banks around the world the short termism of bankers where they're willing to actually hurt the balance sheet to take a shot at a bigger bonus and then perhaps get a sign on when they switch because they are fired for making a huge loss demonstrates you can't utterly rely on self-regulation in business that wonderful mix of mixed free enterprise business and government working well together firm basic regulation with a strong element of self-regulation is the future for Myanmar light but powerful touch of regulation thank you I just want to ask I would somewhat disagree there are areas of regulation that Myanmar needs and they are far more important to bring about political in nature in which they need to create economic policy economic reform before we get down to legislating controls and regulations of how people should behave it's very important and you know I don't see how some banker bashing around the world is going to bring prosperity to to Myanmar we need to bring prosperity by investment and we need to understand that with some clarity and get some of the basic infrastructure in place some of the basic laws and the economic policy and then it is not something that you got to do everything today it's a whole process over the next 10-15 years of this country just picking on that I'll put this one to you Sir Martin having done your due diligence in Myanmar what do you think the government still needs what still needs to be done here or do you think as searchers building blocks are in place it is a slow process I talk about being the world's leading expert on Myanmar having been here for 36 hours so you have to take everything with a truckload of salt the thing that worries me most is capacity so it could be in two senses one is capacity in the country let's say in our own case we can find enough advertising media public relations consumer insight digital talent that's one level the second would be administrative capacity that the comment was made this morning that maybe at the top of government you have the capacity at the ministerial level but as you go down deep into the administration this is an administration that was based on the army who give orders they don't have some legal framework or legislative frameworks they're building that at the moment putting that in place so I think that would be the thing that would trouble me most so again I come down to raising expectations too high because this is about supply and demand and the demand may be there but having being able to deal with it in terms of the supply of people talent, human talent of government and the ministry of talent I think that's the question so adjusting it and that's where you'll get the buzz the friction so there's one more thing as Burma now grows economically already with its rights on 8% growth rate and more you're going to get a lot of migration the 60 billion people that live here are not going to stay where they are they're going to migrate to existing urban centres in droves and create new urban centres out of where the economy exists so this is going to happen too and I think this is a big challenge in terms of changing the very social sustainability of this place and it's changing and how then you're going to urbanise this place in a more effective manner to absorb this is going to be also another big challenge Henry can I I'd like to follow up on that Henry sometimes I find you know thoughts or suggestions a bit too simplified it's all very easy to say good let's go and develop Rakhine and if you start your factory in Rakhine it's good for the people of Rakhine that's fine in theory but as a businessman if you ask me go and set up a factory in Rakhine I'm going to ask you many questions that you will not be able to answer as a government or a regional government or a union government where's my electricity where's my road to the port where's my water you haven't solved those problems so it's so easy to say go to Rakhine and open a factory it'll do good the easy but the opportunities will say yes I want to go to Rakhine he gets a lot of marks for it you really ask him to go I doubt he will go or he will not go after he gets there the first time this is the same with all these remote areas it's not that easy just a very quick response sorry let me just finish this then you say the government says we'll start a development in that industrial zone so that now you can have power you can have roads and so forth you identify the land the squatters come and say I own this land and I'm going to demonstrate and you're going to move me around annuals come and say the poor people you've been unfair to them development stops again the government at this moment have the political will to say I'm sorry we've got to develop this place because it's going to be for the better good of the larger population they don't have that political resolve they run behind the demonstrators we should have legislation to say what we can do what we should do and everybody inclusive follow the law but that law is based on an idea a plan to really develop the whole country it has to be a holistic approach everywhere absolutely a holistic approach very quick please sir you may have missed the second part of my introduction which was to say I am a hard-pitting business man I know exactly what portfolio of risk and economic incentive means what I did say is that I would invest in Rakhine State with a portfolio of factories in the most stable parts of the countries I wouldn't seek to exclude Rakhine State to answer the the previous questions how can business help these underprivileged ethnic and warring minorities well I only know of the best way and that's to create economic sustainability I completely agree yes government should provide incentives and regulations so you can invest albeit with some courage in Rakhine State with a balanced portfolio but you wouldn't leave Rakhine State out if you're genuine about trying to help the country thank you very much we are running out of time Eddie I'd just like to ask you Dow chemical a country like Myanmar obviously would be attractive to Dow chemical I don't know how far down the path you've gone in looking and due diligence and thinking about setting up here of a tool but from what you've seen and what you've heard what do you think this government needs to prioritise now the panel has been suggesting going the right way we saw Myanmar just like Vietnam in the early 90s when economy is opening except now you have bigger trouble bigger problem here so the way I see it is for us and for any companies in manufacturing to invest here you need to fix number one is energy issue very very critical number two is infrastructure like you said we need access road, water, port, transport number three is development of human capital because it is big population it's 60 million population but the same size is Thailand in fact the land size if not mistaken is more it's bigger than Thailand for land size would you want to see this infrastructure developed before you moved in or just want to see the plan for it happening I would say that we need some help infrastructure but it can be developed together but we need a roadmap I mean right now that's about the need for the government to develop a roadmap for energy first because it's very very critical without power you cannot want any manufacturing right so the roadmap for for energy how are you going to resolve infrastructure and after that the policy for manufacturing because don't forget manufacturing is the industry that can create a lot of jobs the economy escalation is huge because every dollar you invest in manufacturing it would trigger more demand from supply change from advertising from logistics from catering so it touch almost all industry so there is a next step that the government need to resolve energy infrastructure human capital and setting up a good roadmap for manufacturing in the country we have run a I wonder if you will give the chance to my friend there who is a very leader thought leader well we talk about corruption but there is another thing which is much more nebulous but very important conflict of interest I don't hear it here I'm not sure whether I can't all the time but conflict of interest not only on the corporate side on the private side the government side and it is very difficult to understand in our culture about conflict of interest because of our culture as an Asian culture and also Myanmar culture and I think that has to be spell out I don't know how it can be done it is done unconsciously some of the issues that we come up from the perspective of the outsiders is basically because of the lack of understanding of conflict of interest in the Myanmar business and governance a second point John from double IWS it's very good about what you are talking about I think but practically it is almost impossible right very huge corporation I mean Shell they do have political analyst my good friend show own okay what if I may paraphrase the neocomf favourite phrase no knowns, known unknowns, unknown unknowns we are overwhelmed by known knowns at the moment in Myanmar forget about unknown unknowns known unknowns maybe think then guys and people like us who have no real responsibility to do the work are going to do it thank you thank you sir on that note we have run over a bit I will have to bring discussions to our panellists thank you so much for joining us today I hope this was worthwhile again thank you very much everyone