SINGAPORE – Foreign companies in Myanmar are struggling to operate in an increasingly unstable environment as the military uses deadly force against a growing protest movement that opposes last month’s coup and much of the country’s workforce goes on strike.
Bank workers and dockers fail to strike as part of a massive civil disobedience campaign aimed at pressuring the military regime to restore the elected government. That has paralyzed Myanmar’s financial system and logistics arteries, with executives struggling to figure out how to pay salaries and import raw materials.
Migrant workers are fleeing industrial areas near Yangon, the country’s largest city, since security forces there shot at least 37 protesters and ripped flames through Chinese garment factories amid the chaos on March 14.
Energy giants Total SE and Chevron Corp., which have business ties to a state-owned company, are under pressure to prevent revenue from flowing into the military that the government controls.
“For businesses, conditions are generally quite unworkable,” said a senior UN official in Myanmar. “There is a sense of impending doom.”