Under the proposal, Myanmar is inviting foreign companies to make investment in labour-intensive industries with the aim of creating more employment opportunities for Myanmar citizens. The government is encouraging local farmers to carry out the extension of arable land and boost crop production. Efforts are being made to increase investment in related sectors such as transportation, farming and grain purification, agricultural equipment manufacturing and finished products manufacturing industries.

Getting international-standard infrastructure is the biggest challenge to the country’s development, the MIC said. Currently, both the government and private sector are in urgent need of investment in the country’s infrastructure. It is expected that huge investment in infrastructure would contribute significantly to transportation, energy, manufacturing and other industries.

DICA is to calculate new investment opportunities, with an aim to prepare land for the investment and smooth mutually-beneficial cooperation between investors.

Agricultural produce, marine products and fishery products, hotels and tourism, power generation, manufacturing, wood-based industry, mining and oil and gas are the sectors with the best prospects for foreign investment.

Since 1988 up to March 31, total foreign investment in Myanmar reached US$63.718 billion. FDI mainly flows into oil and gas, energy, manufacturing, telecom, mining and hotels and tourism sectors.

Under the 20-year National Comprehensive Development Plan, Myanmar has drafted strategies to help support the massive inflow of FDI at a faster rate. The average inflow of FDI is projected to reach between $6 billion and $8 billion from 2017 to 2020.

Laos exported almost 400,000 tonnes of bananas, worth over US$190 million, most of which were sold to China and some to Thailand, according to the Plant Protection Centre of the Department of Agriculture under the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.

Other major agricultural export earners were sweetcorn, at 830,000 tonnes worth over US$122 million; cassava at around 350,000 tonnes, worth US$66.5 million; rubber at 314,000 tonnes, worth US$57.4 million; and coffee at 24,000 tonnes, worth US$51 million.

These figures relate only to exports going through plant protection checkpoints around the country; the numbers from other sectors could be similar or different.

The value may be higher if the authorities were able to get accurate details of the volume of agricultural produce passi ng through various channels. Also, some figures are unobtainable as there is still illegal trading along the borders.

Some plant protection checkpoints have not yet sent their figures to the Centre.

In the first six months of last fiscal year 2014-15, rubber was the top earner but this year dropped to fourth place as the price fell and some farmers began growing other commercial crops.

Bananas and sweetcorn are the main commercial crops in the northern provinces, while cassava is the major crop in the central provinces and coffee in the southern provinces.

Despite banana plantation investments having contributed to economic development, they are having increasing negative impacts on health and the environment, according to studies done by the National Agriculture and Forestry Research Institute in coop eration with the National University of Laos.

Some northern provincial governors announced that they would suspend concessions for banana crops but in fact plantations are still expanding in some areas as investors have signed contracts directly with the landowners.

Exports of Lao bananas have grown tenfold from more than 30.8 b illion kip (US$3.8 million) in 2011-12 to more than 324.8 billion kip (US$40 million) in 2014-15.

Banana sales to China increased from 42 per cent of total banana exports in 2011-12 to 88 per cent in 2014-15 and are expected to rise further.

The commercial production of bananas could be an important source of income for poverty reduction in rural areas if banana cultivation is managed in line recommended practices as well as Lao laws and regulations.

He shook hands and waved nearly as often as he took steps. There were stops for selfies along the way. Dozens of small children orbited him. He made his way to a basketball court where about a thousand people had already been whipped up into a singing frenzy. Tall and still with boyish good looks at 47, the politician climbed onto the makeshift stage and sang Ed Sheeran’s catchy love ditty Thinking Out Loud. The women in the audience shrieked. As he sang, he threw T-shirts and baseball caps into outstretched hands.

He told the crowd: “Come to the polls early on May 9. Don’t forget your IDs. Don’t forget to vote. Don’t forget to write my name. Ruffy Biazon. Congressman.”

Before the day ended, Biazon would be in three more of these “karaoke caucuses”. He would be in bed by 1am and on the road again by 6am – he has been at this every day for the past three months.

This is how politicians get their votes in the Philippines.

On May 9, some 55 million Filipinos will fill up ballots to elect their new president, vice-president, senators, and some 18,000 local officials.

That’s entertainmentScaled up to a national campaign, the productions become even more elaborate.

In her proclamation rally, Senator Grace Poe, 47, a candidate for president, employed a floor director who instructed the audience on when to cheer and clap and when to be quiet. A popular singer and band also gave an impromptu concert.

The singing and dancing are standard fare for candidates seeking national posts. Candidates make the rounds on TV, where they play cameos in sitcoms, swop jokes, dance the Look Up, Look Up, or sing gospel hymns.

On stage, there are dancers to make them look good, stand-up comics to keep the crowd laughing and professional singers to perk up a crowd in between long political speeches.

Rodrigo Duterte, the front runner in the presidential race, cannot only carry a tune, the 71-year-old mayor’s audience roars each time he laces his over-the-top narratives with expletives. Journalists now keep a tally of how many times he curses in his campaign speeches.

The profanities usually stoke the rage at the ruling establishment among his millions of supporters who see in their candidate a no-nonsense, crime-busting, vitriol-spewing everyman.

Political patronageBiazon said campaigning takes patience and stamina.

“But there is a certain value to it because you know you worked hard for it,” he said.

“The thing with being elected, as opposed to being appointed, is that you have to campaign,” he said. “So you have to go to your constituents. You develop personal relations with them, and that gives more meaning to what you’re doing.”

Politics in the Philippines has always been personal. It’s not about the issues – what matters is who is running. Filipinos tend to vote for brand names and that loyalty is often passed down through the generations.

A voting bloc of 9 million in the northern Philippine region of Ilocos, 485km north of Manila, has remained loyal to the family of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

This time, three generations of Marcoses are running for public office.

Mrs Imelda Marcos, 86, the widow of the late strongman himself and most known for her shoe obsession, is seeking a third term as congresswoman. Her eldest daughter, Imee, 60, is running for re-election as governor, while a grandson, Matthew, just 26, will likely be elected a member of the provincial board.

Then, there is Mrs Marcos’ son, Ferdinand Jr, 58, who is on the verge of becoming the Philippines’ next vice-president.

The outcome of this patronage politics has been that in a nation of over 100 million, only about 250 families wield political power.

Faces change, but surnames seldom do. President Benigno Aquino III’s own family has been in politics since the birth of the Philippine republic in 1898.

Filipino voters are also drawn to candidates with a back story that resembles a B-movie plot. That’s why boxing superstar Manny Pacquiao ranks third out of the 52 candidates for senator, despite his dismal performance as a congressman.

His rags to riches story – the fishmonger who boxed his way to fame and fortune – simply tugs at so many voters’ hearts.

Big moneyBut money is just as important.

It costs anywhere from 2.5 billion pesos (US$53 million) to 3 billion pesos ($64 million) to run a presidential campaign. About 80 per cent of that goes on political ads.

Research firm Nielsen Media reported that even before the campaign period began on February 9, candidates for president, vice-president and senators had already spent more than 7.5 billion pesos on about 105,000 advertising spots on TV, radio and in print.

From February 9 till end-March, they spent another 2.7 billion pesos.

The remaining 20 per cent of a candidate’s campaign fund finances the “ground war” – the posters, campaign rallies, T-shirts, caps, rubber bracelets and even rosaries, staff salaries and meals, allowances for volunteers, office leases, and car and equipment rental.

The Internet’s swayOne thing that sets this year’s elections apart is the Internet’s sway over voters.

Over 44.5 million Filipinos – nearly half the population – are online for up to 22 hours a week, up from 23.2 million during the 2010 elections. Half of these log on every day.

Duterte and Ferdinand Marcos Jr are faring strongly among this most wired segment of the population.

Most are too young to remember Ferdinand Marcos’ reign of martial rule and plunder, but they have the strongest sense of disenfranchisement after living through five presidents since his fall.

“People desire change. They are fed up with politics as usual… and they are expressing that rage online,” said Vladimir de Ramos, general manager at Internet security firm AIM Corporated Solutions.

Judging by poll results, this year’s personality-driven elections will likely return the Philippines to strongman rule, and more than a few are dreading the outcome.

One of the fearful ones is Richard Javad Heydarian, a political analyst at De La Salle University.

“I’m afraid that after this highly polarising election, our country will shatter into a thousand pieces,” he said.

“And only in those fragments will we be forced to reckon what went wrong, hoping against hope to piece together a broken nation.”

Trade Undersecretary Ceferino S. Rodolfo said in an interview Friday the first round of talks between the Philippines and the EU would be held in Brussels from May 23 to 27 this year.

“We are eyeing to have an FTA with the EU as we want to secure more permanently the preferential duties for our products when we graduate from the generalised system of preferences (EU GSP+). For instance, some of our agricultural products were already being exported to Europe. But what we wanted to do is to be able to expand and not just penetrate the European markets,” Rodolfo said.

He said the country also wanted to attract more investments from Europe.

He said the upcoming meeting would also provide an avenue for the Philippines and the EU to explain their respective domestic rules and limitations, look at modalities and agree on proposed timelines. The first round would serve as an orientation of sorts for the negotiating parties, he said.

The Philippines currently enjoys a preferential trade treatment for over 6,200 product lines, which can be exported to the EU at zero tariffs under the GSP+ program. The country’s inclusion in this scheme, however, is time bound at 10 years, with a possibility that the Philippines would “graduate” early from this program, depending on how fast the economy would grow over the next decade.

The target, therefore, was to secure a more permanent and long-term relationship with the 28-member bloc through an FTA. Having a bilateral agreement with the EU was deemed highly significant for the Philippines as it would help the country corner a far more significant share of the foreign direct investments EU companies are pouring into the region.

If completed and signed, the PH-EU FTA would be the third bilateral agreement to be secured by the Philippine government after the PH-European Free Trade Association FTA and the Philippine Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (Pjepa).

The EU is currently ranked as the Philippines’ fourth largest trading partner, third largest import source and fourth largest export market. Major exports of the Philippines under the EU GSP scheme include crude coconut oil, canned tuna, spectacle lenses, etc.

A rough calculation by Malaysian Palm Oil Association chief executive Makhdzir Mardan showed that in 2013, when the plantation industry had a shortage of 23,500 workers, the opportunity cost came to 1.6 billion ringgit (US$408.4 million). He points out that in 2013, one foreign worker who works as a harvester equalled 500,000 ringgit in productivity.

While the over-arching industrial policy is to produce higher value-added goods and services, the truth is that large segments of the economy is still very much dependent on low-wage labour, particularly of the low-skilled foreign migrant-worker kind.

Migrant workers Manik and Mohammad Delowar, both 27 years old from Bangladesh, are two such workers working on the multi-billion ringgit Sungei Buloh-Kajang MRT line. Manik has lived in Malaysia for the last eight years and has worked on three property projects before being employed to work on the MRT project.

Both earn a salary of between 1,500 ringgit and 1,600 ringgit per month, 75 per cent of which is remitted home to support their families. Manik told StarBiz that the freeze, which came about after a public outcry over an agreement between the governments of Bangladesh and Malaysia to supply low-skilled workers, would definitely affect the flow of workers that wanted to work in Malaysia.

“I do not wish to go back to my country as I’ll not be able to find a job there,” he said, adding that unemployment in Bangladesh was high and he had to support a family of six.

Manik paid 8,000 ringgit to an agent and waited a year before securing a job in Malaysia. He sold land and borrowed money in order to pay for the fees. Mohammad, who has been working in Malaysia for eight months, paid 12,000 ringgit in fees.

Their experience tell the often unheard human story of foreign workers in Malaysia. These millions of workers who come from the most part from Bangladesh, Indonesia, Myanmar, Nepal, the Philippines and Vietnam are familiar faces in various sectors of the economy. The construction and agriculture sectors cannot do without them while the services sector, especially the hospitality, food and beverage and security industries, have large numbers of foreign workers.

Although the low-cost model of growth has served Malaysia well in the 1980s and 1990s, it has also made local firms reluctant to adopt technology or more efficient ways of doing things. Malaysia’s membership of the Trans Pacific Partnership makes higher productivity and efficiency ever more urgent.

Economists argue that without a rise in productivity, measured in the production of higher value-added goods and services, wages will continue to be low. The large number of foreign workers with their lower skill sets and low wages makes things worse.

This is not to say that there are no higher value-added goods or services being produced, or that the government is not encouraging it. The New Economic Model, together with the National Key Economic Areas, have identified various sectors and subsectors in which Malaysia can have a competitive advantage.

Leadership, clear-cut policy on foreign workers and investment in education as well as technology are just some of the issues that come into play as the country strives to reduce its reliance on low-wage workers and move up the value chain.

Master Builders Association Malaysia president Matthew Tee and Makhdzir agree that the adoption of technology and mechanisation will reduce dependence on foreign workers.

Tee said the government should provide more incentives for construction firms to adopt more efficient processes such as the industrialised building system (IBS) that could reduce dependence on low-skilled migrant workers. He pointed out that reducing the import duties on construction machinery could also help.

Meanwhile, Makhdzir said more funds should be allocated to oil-palm research and development (R&D) to make the industry more competitive. “If we desperately need to make that progress, we need to put in more talent, and more money to make it competitive in terms of R&D,” he added.

Makhdzir said the policy needed to be more flexible where R&D was concerned as talent must be sourced from outside the country if necessary.

But in the meantime, the freeze on foreign workers is causing a lot of problems as news headlines in recent months show. The problem is particularly acute in the construction and agriculture sectors.

Tee said there was a shortage of 1.3 million workers in the construction sector and predicted a shortage of up to 2 million by 2020. “This will cause delay in projects which could result in liquidated damages by clients translating to thousands of ringgit per day,” he adds.

Tee observed that the government-initiated rehiring programme that in part would also legalise illegal foreign workers had only attracted 3 per cent of the 1.7 million total number of illegal workers in the country. He said the requirements to legalise the workers were inflexible and because of that, many did not fit the requirements – one reason why the overwhelming majority had decided not to get properly documented.

He said firms wishing to hire workers under the rehiring programme found it more expensive than hiring fresh foreign workers. On the other hand, Makhzir said there needed to be leadership in tackling the issue while Tee said there needed to be more engagement with industry as the reaction from the authorities had been slow.