Kirin Holdings Co yesterday said that it was undecided on the future of its Myanmar beer business after a third-party probe into its local partner’s military connections ended with inconclusive results.
Kirin had hired Deloitte Tohmatsu Financial Advisory to investigate after the UN identified owners of its local partner, Myanmar Economic Holdings Public Co (MEHL), as members of the military, which has been accused of genocide and other war crimes against the Rohingya.
Myanmar denies genocide, saying its military was carrying out legitimate operations against Rohingya insurgents who attacked police posts.
“Unfortunately, the assessment was inconclusive as a result of Deloitte being unable to access sufficient information required to make a definitive determination,” Kirin said in a statement.
Myanmar Economic Holdings officials were not available for comment.
Groups including Amnesty International have called on Kirin and other companies to cut ties with Myanmar Economic Holdings.
Kirin in November last year said that it was halting payments from the beer ventures to Myanmar Economic Holdings, a suspension it said would continue until a solution was found.
Kirin acquired a majority stake in Myanmar Brewery in 2015, part of billions of dollars in foreign investment that flooded into Myanmar that year with the partial lifting of international sanctions.
Later that year, Burmese State Councilor Aung San Suu Kyi’s party won the first free election in 25 years.
However, many foreign investors have since grown wary about Myanmar amid worries about stalled political reforms and the persecution of the Rohingya Muslim minority, even as some eye its emerging consumer market with interest.
It was unclear what steps Kirin would take next.
Aid groups have said that exiting Myanmar is not necessarily the answer, as that would leave the beer venture’s ties to the military intact.
“It is certainly possible to do business in Myanmar without enriching the military and companies should engage in human rights due diligence to ensure that they do not enter into a business relationship with MEHL or any other Myanmar military entity,” Amnesty International business and human rights adviser William Nee said ahead of Kirin’s announcement.
Myanmar accounts for less than 5 percent of Kirin’s global beer sales, but it is one of the few growing beer markets for Kirin as sales in its home market, Japan, continue to shrink due to an aging population.
Kirin’s beer business in Myanmar follows other overseas ventures that have posed challenges for the firm.
In 2017, it sold its unprofitable Brazilian unit, including the Schincariol brand, to Heineken after losing market share.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
RSS