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New Myanmar government to drop foreign exchange certificates
Published in Saudi Press Agency on 12 - 08 - 2011


Myanmar's new government is planning to
withdraw foreign exchange certificates (FECs) from the market, after
imposing them on foreigners for almost two decades, officials said
Friday, according to dpa.
"In the near future there will be no more FECs, just kyat and
foreign currencies," Information Minister Kyaw Hsan told a press
conference, one of the first held by Myanmar's new elected government
since it took office in April.
The FECs were first introduced in 1993 as a means of keeping
foreign currency under government control.
Visiting foreign tourists were required to purchase 200 US dollars
worth of FECs at the airport on arrival and foreign businessmen and
aid workers were required to use the FEC for official transactions,
often at an exchange rate loss.
The FEC was intended to prevent all foreign exchange from being
traded on the black market, which offered rates of about 1,000 kyat
to the dollar compared with the government's official rate of 6 kyat
to the dollar and 450 kyat for one FEC.
"Burma's multiple exchange rates make conversion and repatriation
of foreign exchange very complex, and ripe for corruption," one US
State Department report said of the system.
In recent months, the local kyat currency has strengthened against
the dollar and FEC, apparently on account of a huge influx of dollars
into the economy.
Kyaw Hsan said holders of FECs should not worry, because the
government will buy back the currency from them with dollars or kyat,
although he did not specify at what rates.


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