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When a country is sitting on over $1 trillion in natural resources and suddenly opens itself for business to the outside world for the first time in fifty years, the potential for explosive short-term gains can’t be ignored.
That’s exactly why I flew to Burma in early June to attend the 2012 Myanmar Investment Summit. I joined executives from 300 companies – from more than a score of countries – in the main ballroom of the Park Royal Hotel in downtown Rangoon, listening to the future of Burma.
On June 19, I wrote to my Emerging Market Strategist subscribers:
“Two recent events have put Myanmar back on the world stage and in a positive light. The country’s aging military leaders stepped aside and Myanmar held its first free elections in decades, in April, with the democratic movement winning almost every Parliamentary seat available in the election. In the wake of those elections, the U.S. government began easing decades-long sanctions against the country.
“Those events set the stage for Myanmar. Though the country still has its problems, it once again has the potential to one day lead Southeast Asia’s economies.
“That day is still years away. But we have the rare opportunity to get into a country at the earliest stages of its emergence – an opportunity I relentlessly pursue because of the huge profits that can accrue over time.”
Just a few weeks later, at the Asean summit in Cambodia in early July, the U.S. government announced exactly what I predicted. It lifted the decades-old ban on companies investing in Burma. A few days later, General Electric secured a deal to sell X-ray machines to two private hospitals in Rangoon. The floodgates were open.
My subscribers saw their position jump 34% in less than a month.
This is just the beginning.
Getting Ahead of the CashThere’s no doubt Burma remains a bit of a mess.
For five decades, Burma’s economy was wildly mismanaged by a gang of psychotic military generals. The population is poor and oppressed…
But the country is well-placed between India and China, and the land is overrun with natural resources. And it’s clear today that the place is moving in the right direction – even the U.S. embassy personnel I met with in Rangoon were honestly excited about the surprising speed at which the country is reforming and the dramatic changes they’ve seen in the last six months alone.
This is exactly the point at which I want to be an investor in a country like Burma. I like to arrive early to these parties, when the hosts are still trying to pretty up the place. By the time the real guests arrive – the ones with all the cash – I will already have my seat at the table and I will profit as they rush in for the festivities.
With the expectation that the U.S. would lift sanctions – along with a general continuation of the country’s reopening to the west – I knew cash would begin looking for ways to profit off of the Burma story.
While we made an incredible gain in such a short period, it’s just the beginning for Burma. The businesses represented in that ballroom with me – names like Dole, Dow Chemicals and Norway’s massive StatOil – had come because they recognized the opportunity emerging as Burma begins to reform its government and its economy. They see the same opportunity I do – namely that Burma could potentially become one of the strongest economies in Southeast Asia.
Countries Where Real Growth Still ExistsCoke, too, has announced plans to return to the once-reclusive nation … while Google, FedEx, Halliburton, Visa and 34 other U.S. companies met with senior White House business officials in Rangoon in late July to scope out the business climate and potential deals. A U.S. Embassy official told me that so many American and European companies in energy, telecom, infrastructure, the consumer sector and other industries are flooding through the country these days that embassy visitors in the past six months alone “probably topped our total number of visitors in the past 10 years.”
American firms, of course, aren’t the only ones interested in exploiting opportunities in Burma. Japan, Singapore, Korea, Thailand, China, Australia, Russia … they’re all traipsing around the capital these days, looking to cut deals in everything from energy and infrastructure to consumer items and transportation.
A poll out of Hong Kong just this week showed that Asian asset managers now rank Burma as the greatest investment opportunity for the next five years.
Fortunes are clearly up for grabs as Burma opens up to the world.
The Risk-Free Way to Invest in Emerging MarketsI understand that not everyone is ready to capitalize on the opportunities in Burma.
But every investor needs some exposure to the emerging and frontier markets. They are the future of the world economy. The U.S. has had its century in the sun, just as Britain, Spain, Portugal and the others did centuries ago. America’s growth phase is over. We’re now in the autumn of our days as an economy, moving into the winter cycle. But spring is dawning over the emerging markets… and that’s where tomorrow’s opportunities exist in abundance.
If you don’t want the risk of stocks, a safe, convenient way to play that growth trend is through Everbank’s MarketSafe Emerging Market CD. It gives you exposure to emerging-market currencies including the Brazilian real, Turkish lira, South Korean won and the Colombian peso.
As emerging-market economies grow over the next five years, their currencies will strengthen and gain in value against a U.S. dollar backed by mountains of debt and political incompetence. But… just in case the world doesn’t work out that way, Everbank has structured this as a MarketSafe product, meaning that, at the very least, you will get back every penny of your original principal. If you want to know more about the Emerging Market CD, click here.
Until next time, stay Sovereign…
P.S. As I said, America’s growth phase is over. While your Wall St. broker tries to funnel you into sagging U.S. blue-chip stocks, the real growth is found beyond America’s shores. These are exactly the kinds of opportunities I’m always researching for my Emerging Market Strategist subscribers – companies that still have the potential for big gains in growing markets. To learn how you can become a subscriber – and about all of the opportunities your broker isn’t telling you about – click here for my latest special report.
2012-08-06 14:26:01
Source: http://sovereign-investor.com/2012/08/06/invest-in-emerging-markets-burma/
