Much of it also went into hotels, of which there is now a glut. The money came in, it was spent and it's gone. It never translated into any significant development of the manufacturing sector' says the Rangoon-based analyst. A commercial attache at a Western embassy in Rangoon also confirms that the number of potential foreign investors inquiring about business opportunities in Burma has declined markedly over the past year. Meanwhile, attempts to restore Burma's rice exports to their pre-World War II glory have failed miserably.
Educational standards are abysmal.
Further, the schools have been closed off and on since the Slorc took over in 1988. But the real crunch came when by mid 1996 the government was running out of money. The reserves generated from the Tokyo embassy sale had been depleted and foreign investment wasn't coming in. They did not. Until late 1995, the country's reserves of foreign currency had exceeded the private sector's deposits of foreign currency, as is normal.