A man wearing a face mask walks past closed Sule Pagoda and a mosque in downtown Yangon in April.
The Southeast Asian nation started allowing foreigners to invest in equities on March 20 – four days before the country reported its first coronavirus cases. “If we say we don’t suffer any impacts of Covid-19, then it is just a lie,” Htay Chun, an SEC commissioner, said in a phone interview on Friday. “But it is fair to say that we are not hit as badly as some developed markets.”
“Post pandemic, we expect to see three or four new main-board listings every year,” he said. “Listed companies can offer foreign investors as many shares as they want,” though a firm’s designation changes into a “foreign entity” if overseas ownership exceeds 35%.