SIA launches daily flight to Yangon

“Demand has been growing strongly for both business and leisure travel to Myanmar; and Singapore Airlines looks forward to serving the country for the first time,” Mak Swee Wah, SIA Executive Vice President of Commercial, who is also Chairman of SilkAir, said in a press release on September 5.

The SIA took over seven of 16 Singapore-Yangon flights run every week by subsidiary SilkAir.

SIA’s new service uses a 323-seat Boeing 777-200 wide-body aircraft, replacing the 142-seat Airbus A320 of SilkAir. This increases the weekly seat capacity of the airline by 55 per cent.

SilkAir has been operating Yangon-Singapore flights since 1999. Since September, other foreign airlines – such as Japan’s All Nippon Airways, China’s EVA Air, Qatar Airways and Korean Air – have been launching direct flights to Myanmar former capital.

Private and publicly owned airways Air Bagan, Air KBZ, Air Mandalay, Asian Wings Airways, Myanma Airways, Myanmar Airways International and Yangon Airways are also operating domestic and international flights.

 

Oil, gas exploration to be decentralised

Myanmar’s Ministry of Energy is planning to allow regional and state governments to conduct exploration, refining, transport, and storage and distribution of oil and gas. 

The ministry seeks to promote inland and offshore oil and gas exploration to make considerable profit, said an official who attended a recent seminar on the energy and electric power sector development project. 

Authorities said a body will be set up to handle oil- and gas-related services such as pipeline connection and engineering. They are also planning to carry out a joint venture with private companies to run oil refineries, liquefied-gas plants, methanol plants and fertiliser plants. 

The government earned US$1.7billion (Bt52.2 billion) from the natural gas sector from April to September this year. 

Myanmar ranks as the world’s 14th natural gas exporter. Observers predict the country will be among the top 10 in 2013. 

 

Timber exports to be banned 

Myanmar plans to completely stop exporting timber on April 1, 2014, to save its forests, authorities said.

“The project is focusing to save the remaining one-fifth of the country’s total area and also to manufacture high quality wood products to export,” said Thein Lwin, secretary of the Parliament’s Natural Resources and Environment Conservation Committee. 

Myanmar’s forest coverage was down to 24 per cent in 2008 from 51 per cent in 2005, and 57 per cent in 1962. The main causes of deforestation are excessive harvesting of trees, rampant illegal logging, increasing use of firewood, as well as shifting cultivation system. The government has also expressed readiness to completely stop exporting wood logs.

Myanmar produces about 283,000 cubic metres of teak and 1.98 million cubic metres of hardwood annually.