With foreigners returning to Rangoon, the seedy basement bars in the city's five-star hotels are doing a thriving business. Elsewhere, however, the economic outlook remains bleak. . Since a burst of foreign investment at the height of Asia's economic boom in the early 1990s came to an end, Burma's economy has been locked in a downward spiral. . Exports are down, hampered by the country's record on human rights. The government denies Western organizations' allegations that it tolerates forced labor, but union groups and others have been pushing boycotts. .
Investors shun the country, too.
Two major foreign banks, frustrated at the lack of economic progress, closed local offices in the past year. The government alternates randomly between odd, desperate and occasionally appropriate measures. Rules governing the key agricultural sector highlight the impact of seemingly arbitrary policies. Price deregulation of beans several years ago encouraged farmers to grow the crop, which became one of the country's largest agricultural exports. Rice, by contrast, was considered too strategically important for deregulation.