Myanmar state bank sets ultimatum for deposit reclaim from closed private bank

The state-run Myanmar Economic Bank(MEB) has set March 31, 2009 as a deadline date for the public to claim for the refund of deposits in the former Myanmar Universal Bank (MUB), one of the three major private banks closed by the government more than three years ago.
The unclaimed deposits will be confiscated as the state fund after the deadline date, an announcement of the MEB warned.

The MEB has taken over the administration of the MUB since Oct.1 this year, the statement said.

The MUB was sealed by the government in August 2005 and its owner, U Tin Sein, was charged under the country's Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law and the Control of Money Laundering law.

The MUB started operation in January 1995.

Meanwhile, two other private banks -- Myanmar Mayflower Bank (MMB) and Asia Wealth Bank (AWB) were also closed earlier in March 2005 for allegedly linking with narcotics and money laundering and the banks' administration was then handed over to the MEB under the Finance and Revenue Ministry.

The MMB and the AWB, established in 1994 and 1995 respectively, was first investigated by an eight-member government-formed investigation body in December 2003. Despite 15 months' probe into the matters, no firm evidence was found to prove the offense, according to earlier reports.

In June 2002, Myanmar promulgated a law to control money laundering, and financial institutions such as banks were set to report to the Central Control Board (CCB) their clients' fiscal activities and report any cashes exceeding 100 million kyats (100,000 U.S. dollars) and any other suspicious account activities.

Meanwhile, the state-run Myanmar Economic Bank has rejected to offer bank services to deposits suspected as money laundering.

Private banks were nationalized in Myanmar in 1963 during the previous government but after the country started to adopt the market-oriented economic system in late 1988, private banks were allowed to operate again since 1992, and since then there had been20 such banks across Myanmar with a total of 350 branches.

With the take-over of the three banks by the government and the merger of three other cooperative banks to become a public-listed bank in recent years, there remained 15 of such banks in operation so far.

Lower high way bus fares, starting October 18

Yangon, October 23
The government’s Transport Committee endorsed the plan to lower the public bus fare by 25 kyats per mile both non air-conditioned and air-conditioned public bus fares, starting October 18.
U yan naing , CEC member of the Aung minglar high way compound Committee, said the fare reduction took the current fuel price at 4000 kyats per gallon (nearly 5 litters) into consideration for government.
After the enforcement, fares of air-conditioned and non-air-conditioned public high way buses will be reduced from 26 kyats per mile to 25 kyats .
As for the Transport affiliated and non-affiliated public high way buses, their fares will be decreased as per schedules.
Public high way bus owners also said they were ready to drop their fares without any condition.

Authority to move old big cemetery of Pyinmanar to a new place

Yangon october 22
Authority to move old big cemetery of Pyinmanar to a new place where 20 miles far away from old cemetry.They made announcement on 15 October and saying that local residences must move their relatives graves from old cemetry as soos as possible because now Pyinmana become the capital of Myanmar.

As the character of capital of Myanmar , the cemetery is not supposed to be here, said an officail from Pyin Ma Nar city development commitee.

Local people are very disappointed with the move of cemetery .They said the new cemetery is very far from thier houses and it will costs more money when they have funerals. They added, now if they have funera l from now on, the funeral car service to new cemetry will cost
20 000 kyats.

Pyinmana population: 100,000 (2006 estimate)) is a logging town and sugar cane refinery center in Mandalay Division of Myanmar. The administrative capital of Myanmar was officially moved to a militarised greenfield site two miles west of Pyinmana on November 6, 2005. Pyinma is approximately 200 miles (320 km) north of Yangon.

Myanmar authority changes CNG gas filling systems

Myanmar authority changes CNG gas filling systems in CNG stations after 7 killed CNG car blasts. They put the announcement of new gas filling system on the wall of all 21 CNG staions in Yangon today. Minister of Energy also insepects all CNG staions in Yangon whether to follow new CNG filling system.


The CNG car blast occurred at 2:30 am early Monday morning as the bus headed north through the city and the explosion had been caused by CNG gas boxer according to eye witness.

However, Myanmar authority made a report from Yeasterday newspaper which saying that the blast is occured because of car accident and denied that it was not CNG explosion.

But, they also supspected their poor quality CNG cars and later they change CNG gas filling system which is better and more safter than old CNG filling system.

According to government figure, the number of CNG-powered cars in Myanmar are around 14000.