Irrawaddy-Aug 7
The US has started enforcing its sanctions against two junta-owned banks in Myanmar by closing a window for businesses to wind down all transactions with them, according to the US Department of State. The US designated sanctions on military-controlled Myanma Foreign Trade Bank and Myanma Investment and Commercial Bank on June 21 as they have been instrumental in facilitating the regime’s use of foreign currency to procure arms and jet fuel abroad, to access international markets using offshore accounts. But the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control issued a license to allow businesses and banks engaging with the banks an orderly “wind down”. The license expired on August 5 and the sanctions will be enforced, according to a statement by the Department of State on Friday.
The US said the banks enable the regime to fund violence and it pledged to continue to engage with its partners in the international community to constrain the regime’s ability to exploit the international financial system. Through offshore accounts, the two banks have facilitated the junta regime’s profiteering from Myanmar’s extractive industries, including oil and gas, teak and gemstones. The banks have monopolized the country’s economy for decades as they have been the key financial institutions controlling the flow of foreign currency in Myanmar. All the transactions made by Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry members and state-owned enterprises and even the salaries of seafarers are handled by the two banks. To support its efforts to crush resistance forces, the regime has relied on foreign sources, including sanctioned Russian entities, to purchase and import arms. Economist U Sein Htay, a former member of the economic committee of the National League for Democracy government, told The Irrawaddy in an interview that these new US sanctions against these banks will disrupt junta funding. Read more at: https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/myanmars-crisis-the-world/us-closes-sanctions-window-for-myanmar-junta-banks.html
