Like many wealthy people, Myanmar businessman Tay Za was drawn to Singapore because it offers stability and anonymity.
·By Chanyaporn Chanjaroen
That stance is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain as the US ramps up pressure on the junta and global financial regulators weigh blacklisting the country. There are signs Singapore is moving away from its policy of not interfering in the affairs of neighboring countries.
As recently as 2018, when sanctions against Tay Za weren’t in effect, representatives of his Yangon Aircraft Engineering Co. met with Myanmar Air Force delegates to discuss the conversion of ATR 72 aircraft for cargo and troop transport at an approximate cost of $550,000 each, according to leaked minutes of the meeting published by Justice for Myanmar, a group that investigates and campaigns against entities supporting the junta.
His two sons joined the call. Heir apparent Pye Phyo, 35, dialed in from Yangon in Myanmar, and Htoo Htet, 29, who runs the family bank, was at the W Hotel on Sentosa. Both went to an international school in Singapore, speak excellent English, and chipped in with occasional translations for their father.
Aung Zaw, editor-in-chief of the Irrawaddy, said he stood by his publication’s story. The US Treasury declined to comment. Tay Za married Thida Zaw in the early 1980s after dropping out of a military school. Her family owned Htoo Group, which at the time operated a rice-milling business. Tay Za expanded it into teak trading, aviation, construction, hospitality and banking while making friends with top officials, including Than Shwe, head of state for two decades until 2011.
Business incorporation is a big industry in Singapore, and more than 560,000 firms were registered there as of July. Serena Lee Chooi Li is among the beneficiaries. The Malaysian lawyer is or has been the corporate secretary of more than 200 companies, according to her 147-page profile at Singapore’s corporate registry. Among the active ones are Tay Za’s Pavo Trading, where Lee has been secretary since 1999.
Singapore is the largest foreign investor in Myanmar with a total of $25 billion flowing into the poorer country since 1989. Keppel Corp., which counts state-investment firm Temasek Holdings Ltd. as its biggest shareholder, has investments in Myanmar, as does sovereign wealth fund GIC Ltd. That position hasn’t changed, according to a spokesperson for the central bank, who acknowledged that financial institutions in Singapore have been placed on “heightened alert in relation to risks emanating from the situation in Myanmar.
Singapore’s stricter stance has also affected companies that haven’t been sanctioned and have no obvious connections to the junta. “We are seeing that banks these days are increasingly strict when it comes to new account openings by Myanmar individuals or entities,” said Chester Toh, a partner at Rajah & Tann, one of Singapore’s largest law firms, who helped set up the firm’s practice in Myanmar.
Tun Hlaing, director of the Myanmar Directorate for Defense Industries, has been linked to several Singapore companies. His daughter Thet Hnin married Tay Za’s son Pye Phyo in 2020. The wedding was held in a resort town near Mandalay, and the groom arrived in a red Ferrari F8 Spider.
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