Burma has revised its forecast for foreign direct investment (FDI) to more than US$5 billion for the fiscal year that began in April, a senior official said on Tuesday, surpassing earlier expectations and led by new ventures in energy and telecoms.

The figure exceeds an earlier estimate of $4 billion, with investments in the first five months of this fiscal year worth $3.32 billion, said Aung Naing Oo, secretary of the government-run Myanmar Investment Commission (MIC)"...

China’s ability to elbow out other contenders for the Shwe gas—from Thailand, Japan and South Korea, as well as India—underlines Beijing’s rising influence within the Burmese regime

Click on Myanmar for a map and description of MMAJ's earlier interest in the Monywa mine, now being exploited by Ivanhoe. In 1998 MMAJ organised a Workshop in Rangoon for "Investment Promotion & Environemntal Protection in the Mining Sector in ASEAN

Click down to Burma

The Mines and Communities Website ("MAC") was initiated by
members of the Minewatch Asia-Pacific London support group. Its main aim is to ensure easy access to materials published by the group, as well as partner organisations and individuals.

We want to make information on mining impacts, projects, and the
corporate sector more widely available. Above all, we hope to empower
mining-affected communities, so that they can better fight against
damaging proposals and practices.

Formerly East Asia Gold Corp. Nothing much on the site (Sept 2001) though they are mentioned as active in the 2001 Mining Annual Report.

Ivanhoe Mines, a Canadian-based company whose operations in Burma have recently come under renewed scrutiny following the release of a report by a mining watchdog group, has come out in defense of its Burmese business partners, the ruling SPDC

Research shows that land disputes are increasingly common, exposing businesses to severe risks at the project level. The problem is endemic and growing – companies want evidence-based approaches to address this new reality and understand their exposure to risk. The Quantifying Tenure Risk (QTR) financial model blends verified company data with detailed case research to accurately assess tenure risk and provide tailored support to investors and businesses. 

This LEGEND bulletin explores early experiences and emerging lessons from four of these projects, and includes testimony from community members attesting to their positive results.

In South Africa, policies of separate development and restrictions placed on capital expenditure imposed on the lands occupied by the indigenous people during the colonial era prevented the state from implementing the cadastre in the communal areas of the country. The status quo persists to this day, which has resulted in a dual system that promoted investment in areas where private property rights were permitted, but relegated the traditional communities into poverty and disinvestment

Land registration and titling in Africa has been seen as a means of legal empowerment of the poor that can protect smallholders’ and pastoralists’ rights of access to land and other landbased resources.

The Department of Mineral Resources is attempting to develop oil and gas drilling in South Africa through Operation Phakisa. The project is still in the early stages of research and exploration, but the Department aims to have 30 wells built in 10 years. DME estimates very roughly, that as many as 9 billion barrels of oil and 9 billion barrels of gas could be within South African borders, and many national and international companies have expressed interest in investing in South African drilling.