In his first public speech on Tuesday, US Ambassador Scot Marciel said there is no magic bullet to get all sanctions removed.

Enforcement of democracy, respect for human rights and a peace process that would result in the reduction of conflicts and human rights violations should be the main issues for the review of sanctions.

While most sanctions were lifted, the remaining ones targeting some individuals and enterprises close to the previous junta – intended to create incentives for further reforms – had side-effects on American companies and Myanmar’s economy.

“We recognised that even the limited target sanctions occasionally had unintended effects on the broader economy,” he said.

“When I talked about the unintended consequences, the sanctions particularly so-called specially-designated nationals list, which target particular entities and individuals.

“The purpose of that is to create incentives for those entities and individuals to change their behaviours and support the reform efforts or stop doing whatever’s problematic.

“That is the intent. The intent is not to hurt the overall economy.

“These very narrow targeted sanctions inadvertently had a bigger impact on the economy, which is not the intention. So we love to see the ways that we can reduce the impacts.”

The remaining sanctions were regularly reviewed to reduce those unintended effects. “I cannot yet say when the outcomes of the review will be.

“But I want to stress that our goal is to continue to support those reforms and broad-based sustainable and equitable economic development,” he said.

The sanctions are not the only reason why American businesses are still cautious about doing business in Myanmar.

Physical infrastructure, rules and regulations, the rule of law and tax rates are the key areas that US investors usually take into consideration, and they also look at other places to invest, he said.

The US is all eyes on the Myanmar government’s actions to address the labour rights issue, which led to the suspension of GSP in April 1989. There are a lot of initiatives in the labour field.

“So, I am hopeful that there is a good opportunity to make very good progress, but exactly when to reach that magical point is a little bit hard for me to say.”

Investors in the US and elsewhere are waiting for the lifting of all sanctions and GSP.