A tuk-tuk drives passengers down the main street of Dawei on March 25. Lwin Maung Maung/ The Myanmar TimesLwin Maung Maung/ The Myanmar Times A tuk-tuk drives passengers down the main street of Dawei on March 25.
Dawei residents say they have mixed feelings about the development of the nation’s first special economic zone (SEZ) and deepsea port on their doorstep.
The project kicked off officially on November 2, 2010, when the government, via the Myanma Port Authority, signed a build, operate and transfer agreement with Italian-Thai Development to construct a 250-square-kilometre SEZ and deepsea port 18 miles (32 kilometres) north of the town at Kappali Bay.
The first stage has a price tag of US$8 billion and includes a 170-kilometre-long road to link Dawei, in Tanintharyi Region, to Phu Nam Ron on the border with Thailand.
Residents told The Myanmar Times in late March that they hope the development in Yayphyu township will benefit the region.
“I didn’t have any clue what a deepsea port was when I heard about the SEZ last year. I thought it would mean the construction of huge jetties like what I’ve seen in Yangon. But there is nothing at all like that going on yet and I think it’s far too early to say that this will benefit us,” said 25-year-old Dawei resident Ko Lin Shein.
However, he said many Chinese and Thai businesspeople have visited the town since November to invest in the real estate market. As a result, prices have skyrocketed, with some commercial sites now selling at a 500 percent mark-up on November 2010 prices.
A number of former Dawei residents working in Thailand quickly returned home in hopes of finding better-paid work when news of the development spread, said Ma May Thaw, a beautician working in Style beauty salon in Dawei’s Myauk Ywar quarter.
However, many have since returned to Thailand after learning that only low-paid labouring work would be available.
“A general labourer can earn the equivalent of about K6000 a day in Thailand but here in Dawei the best-paid labouring jobs pay only K4500. The jobs offered at the SEZ project pay even less than that, so many of those who had come home quickly went back to work in Thailand because the money was better,” she said.
“From what I’ve heard most labourers are only earning K3500 a day, which isn’t very much,” she said.
Tuk-tuk driver Ko Zin Maung Oo, 24, confirmed that there has been a surge of visitors since at least the start of this year.
“We tuk-tuk drivers are busy every day and new hotels and guesthouses have opened up this year. Many of the new visitors are Chinese and they all want to go and look at the port area. Some days I earn as much as K40,000 driving people around,” he said, adding that before the development was announced he would never earn more than K30,000 a day.
Should the SEZ flourish there are signs that it might reverse some of the brain drain that has seen many of the nation’s young professional leave Myanmar to seek greener pastures elsewhere.
Ko Myo Min Oo, a civil engineer working in Singapore, said if the salaries on offer at the project were good enough, he would return to Myanmar to work there.
“Actually I don’t like to work here [in Singapore] and I’d love to work in Myanmar but I also have to worry about money. If I can get a job in Dawei with a comparable salary to what I earn here I’d be happy to come home,” he said, adding that his job pays about S$2000 a month, or about $1600.
However, Dawei residents said there’s little technical employment available to locals because Italian-Thai has brought in Thai workers to perform that work.
The major economic activities in Dawei include the cultivation of rubber, cashew nuts and betel nuts, as well as fishing in the waters of the Andaman Sea.
In the Na-Bu-Lal region within Yayphyu township, cashew plantations are common and even the poorest farmers have at least 5 acres, residents said.
“I’ve heard that the Thai company will give compensation to the land owners around the SEZ project but we have heard nothing about what will happen here,” said one 55-year-old Na-Bu-Lal resident.
U Ye Naing Aung, the president of the Dawei SEZ supporting group (temporary) and deputy director of the General Administrative Department, under the Ministry of Home Affairs, said Italian-Thai will negotiate will all land owners who lose property in the development.
“We have to stand by our people and ensure that everybody is fairly compensated,” he said.
U Bo Kyi, a 73-year-old resident of Htein Gyi village said he had heard that some of the people who had previously owned land where the roads have been laid have already been compensated.
