Investor Jim Rogers, the chairman of Rogers Holdings who predicted a global commodities rally in 1999, said Myanmar is embracing reform as China did decades earlier and he’s optimistic about the resource-rich nation’s prospects.
“If I could put all of my money into Myanmar, I would,” Rogers said at a conference in Singapore today. “Myanmar is in the same place China was in early 1979, when Deng Xiaoping said we have to do something new. Myanmar is now opening up.”
Rogers’s comments highlight increased investor interest in the economy that may be Asia’s “next economic frontier,” according to the International Monetary Fund. The IMF is pushing for an overhaul of Myanmar’s finances as President Thein Sein releases dissidents and engages with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in moves that have prompted the U.S. and Europe to reassess sanctions against the former military dictatorship.
“It’s right between China and India, 60 million people, massive natural resources, agriculture,” Singapore-based Rogers said at the gathering organized by New York-based INTL FCStone Inc. “You could feed much of Asia, they have metals, they have energy, they have everything.”
