Foreign investment in Burma helps the dictatorship earn millions of dollars each year. Burma's democracy movement has called for targeted economic sanctions against the regime in Burma.

The regime estimates it has received a total of more than 1.2 billion dollars of UK investment since 1988, largely because companies from all over the world have used UK overseas territories to channel investment to Burma.

The British government could implement investment sanctions to stop these companies from supporting the dictatorship in Burma. It refuses to do so.

There is no evidence of any new investment in Burma, either by UK companies or through overseas territories, so why ban it?

The lack of evidence is exactly why foreign companies channel investment through British overseas territories. Aside from the tax advantages of investing via overseas territories, there is a complete lack of transparency. Companies can invest in Burma without anyone knowing. Even the British government doesn’t know how much investment in Burma is channelled through its own territory. It took 11 years before the fact that French oil giant TOTAL Oil had used the UK to invest in Burma came to light.  We don’t know what investment is going on right now, but we do know that in the past 18 years UK territories have consistently been a favoured method of investing in Burma.  TOTAL Oil is now planning new investment in Burma. As things stand they will again be able to do so via the UK. Orient Express is also planning to expand its operations in Burma.

A multilateral approach is better and more effective than the UK going it alone.

Absolutely, we agree. However, some countries in the EU, including France, which has large commercial interests in Burma, block EU sanctions, so the EU is currently unable to act. The UK must not use this as an excuse to do nothing. It can and must act unilaterally. The UK has a strong tradition of leading the way on key issues, for example it unilaterally cancelled third world debt when it could not get multi-lateral agreement. This move broke the deadlock and other governments followed suit. We hope that if the UK acts to ban new investment, other EU members may follow.

If the UK goes it alone it could lead to the EU Common Position on Burma falling apart.

There is no evidence to support this argument. The UK has already gone further than the EU Common Position on Burma. It has withdrawn support for trade missions, and has a policy of not encouraging trade and investment in Burma. It has also successfully called on two large British companies, Premier Oil and British American Tobacco, to pull out of Burma. EU governments are already well aware of the UK’s opinion on this issue, and are not likely to be surprised by the UK going one step further and legally enforcing what is already British government policy. 

In addition, the EU has already accepted that investment sanctions are an effective tool for putting pressure on the regime in Burma. The EU introduced a limited investment ban in 2004.

If the UK bans investment it will simply be channelled via other countries.

The argument that one can do whatever one wants to do no matter how bad, just because if you don’t someone else will, is one that belongs in a school playground, not international policy making. To follow the logic of this argument the EU should drop its arms embargo, because Russia and China still sell arms to the regime. The UK is involved in business activities that fund a regime that is slaughtering its own people. We should not be involved in facilitating investment in Burma.

The figures on UK investment in Burma are misleading

Figures published by the regime rank the UK as the 2nd largest source of approved investment in Burma since 1988 (China was ranked 16th).  This includes UK companies, and foreign companies channelling investment through the UK overseas territories. How much of the investment that was approved actually happened we do not know, but given that a significant amount of the Yadana gas project investment went through UK territories, the figures are likely to be fairly accurate. In addition, it is possible that some UK investment in Burma may have been classified as coming from other countries. For example British American Tobacco invested in Burma via a Singaporean subsidiary, and we believe this may have been classified as Singaporean, not UK investment.

An investment ban will be ineffectual, the regime has a bunker mentality and more pressure will force them to retreat further

All evidence is to the contrary. The regime depends on foreign trade and investment for its survival, and it knows this. This is why is has gone to so much effort to attract investment in high revenue sectors such as oil and gas. It opens new embassies around the world every year, and prioritises building airports and creating new airlines. It remains a member in the ILO despite heavy criticism from the organisation, and seeks to join new international organisations, even accepting ASEM membership despite its head of state being banned from ASEM meetings. This is not a regime that is isolating itself.

In any case, even if one accepted that argument that an investment ban would be ineffectual, ineffectual measures are entirely consistent with the existing EU Common Position on Burma. The EU has banned investment in state owned enterprises, despite that already being illegal under Burmese law, has passed a visa ban on regime officials even though the Foreign Office admits regime officials rarely visited the EU anyway, and has frozen the assets of those individuals, resulting in less than £4,000 being frozen in the entire EU.

The government has no power to stop British companies from investing in Burma.

The Burma Campaign UK took the government to the high court to prove the UK could act unilaterally to ban British companies and individuals from making new investment in Burma. To do this it simply needs to pass a small piece of legislation, which every main political party in the UK supports except the Labour Party. More than 100 Labour MPs backed an Early Day Motion calling for an investment ban. It can also act immediately to stop foreign companies investing in Burma via the UK.

We don’t want to hurt ordinary Burma people.

It is Burmese people that are asking for targeted investment sanctions. In many countries trade and investment can help ordinary people, but in Burma the opposite happened. The regime used the revenue from investment to double the size of the army and increase its attacks on its own population. At the same time as new revenue came in they reduced spending on health and education. The call is for targeted economic sanctions, not blanket sanctions. Over three-quarters of Burma’s people are small farmers, no-one is calling for sanctions on agricultural exports. An investment ban would stop companies setting up joint ventures with the regime and so directly funding the generals and the abuses they commit.