Myanmar’s two military holding companies and several privately-held firms have once again performed poorly on a survey of business transparency, with some of the report’s worst performers due for imminent removal from the United States Treasury sanctions list.

The third annual Transparency in Myanmar Enterprises report, published by the Myanmar Centre for Responsible Business…saw little change at the bottom of the table of the country’s top 100 corporate taxpayers…

MCRB director Ms. Vicky Bowman said she believed that the prospect of foreign investment in the wake of the announcement [on the lifting of US sanctions] would provide an additional incentive for lagging firms to “significantly raise their game.”

“Wednesday’s decision… will in a way increase the business case for being transparent, because these companies are still going to have to differentiate themselves when looking for partners,” Bowman said. “Certainly the foreign companies that we talk to are looking at them to have strong anti-corruption policies to be clear on what their business is and to be compliant with the law.”…