Jim Rogers is bullish on Myanmar. The Singapore-based investor, chairman of Rogers Holdings, last month compared the Southeast Asian country today with China in 1979, just as Deng Xiaoping was launching the economic reforms that helped transform China into the world’s second-largest economy. With Myanmar’s authoritarian government finally starting on the road of reform, Rogers said, there’s no end to the possibilities for the country’s economy. “It’s right between China and India, 60 million people, massive natural resources, agriculture,” Rogers said. “You could feed much of Asia, they have metals, they have energy, they have everything.”
That kind of enthusiasm is helping make Yangon, Myanmar’s former capital and largest city, an unlikely hot spot for travelers. With so many business people and tourists suddenly flocking to Myanmar, the city’s underdeveloped hotel industry is feeling the strain. Rooms can cost up to $400 a night, Tony Picon, associated director of property broker Colliers International Thailand, told Bloomberg on March 28.
