Middle East and Southeast Asia telecoms company Ooredoo recently took advantage of a thawing in Myanmar’s international relations to set up shop in one of the world’s last untapped mobile phone markets. At Legal Week’s Corporate Counsel Forum Singapore, general counsel Scott Weenink shared his experiences
Scott Weenink, general counsel Asia, Ooredoo: “Ooredoo specialises in emerging and frontier markets so Myanmar [where Ooredoo has recently been awarded a licence] is right in our sweet spot. I’ve probably been there about 30 times over the last couple of years. When you are going into a country like that you really need to take your time and get a good lay of the land. What we found in Myanmar was that there were several brokers and middlemen who claimed they knew what was going on but, in fact, knew very little. It was actually the people who admitted that reliable information was hard to come by who were more useful.”
