Improving Myanmar - Launch of E-Visa Service
Article by UNITEAM T&T Head Office, Yangon, Myanmar, 25-Feb - 2004
We must acknowledge that Myanmar has been isolated due to its history and foreign policies. However the country is quickly closing the gap in IT-field and is now one of the very few countries in the world to offer online visas.
Myanmar is a country lacking basic infrastructure which the government, together with the private sector, is steadily improving. Although currently there are still areas not easily contactable via telephone or in some instances telephone lines are cut during conversations, the past few years has seen dramatic improvements.
Just a few short years ago a company would be lucky to share a single email address between the entire office. Wireless VPN connections were installed in the capital and almost overnight a company was now able to have a number of different email addresses as well as the capability for internal office communication. Soon after the Internet moved into offices and private homes - when I arrived everybody said "sorry, internet? - not in Myanmar!" Sure not all pages are viewable (e.g. pages with explicit material, public email-provider) but all necessary information is available. If you want to read yahoo, search on google.com or get the news from your home newspaper - it is all available.
Soon everybody could register an email-address at a very low cost - worldwide communication was possible. There is no doubt that there is still a lot of control of what can be sent and what can be viewed on the internet, but for a normal business person staying in contact with colleagues abroad or a private person writing to friends worldwide, these control measures have no effect.
Myanmar now boasts its own booming IT-industry from companies specializing in designing and hosting web-pages right through to companies creating tailor made business software.
Myanmar has even embraced technology not yet used in many parts of the world; a prime example of this is IP-star - satellite internet connection, allowing email and Internet access in some of the more remote parts of the country. Hotels outside of the capital such as Bagan, Mandalay and even at beach destinations such as Ngapali have been setup with this technology. A fine example how this technology has improved the tourism industry is seen at one beach resort who has worked together with a local IT-company to create a specialized reservations program that has linked the reservation office in Yangon and the resort itself several hundred kilometers away. All data is hosted on a server, the reservation office is connected via LAN-connection in Yangon and the resort via satellite (IP-Star) which allows information inputted by the reservations agent to be at the hotel within seconds.
The latest improvement is the launch of an e-visa service for Myanmar. Now every traveler who wants to visit Myanmar is able to receive their visa directly online within hours. Myanmar is the first country in South East Asia to offer this service and launched the e-visa service on 21st January 2004. The Immigration and National Registration Department has already received over ten applications from Austria, Denmark, Italy, Singapore, Sweden and the United States - the processing time was less than 24 hours.
To apply, tourist and business travelers need to access www.visa.gov.mm , which has instructions in English and will be soon offer it in six more languages. After completing the application form for processing, the approved applications are returned via Email. Travelers will have to show a print-out of the approved application form at the Immigration counter upon their arrival in Myanmar. The fees for different visas are detailed on the page and applicants can pay the charge on-line with a credit card. The e-visa system was mainly implemented by Myanmar, however around 10%, including the online security, was implemented by a Malaysia IT firm. It is surely a step to make a trip to this beautiful country easier and with much shorter notice, a big advantage for the business traveler and tourists who may be visiting neighboring countries and change their plans to come to Myanmar.
