A LEGAL RESILIENCE MODEL FOR LARGE-SCALE INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT IN MYANMAR’S SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONES

Abstract

This study examines how Myanmar’s legal framework affects the legal bankability of large-scale infrastructure investment within Special Economic Zones (SEZs). It treats legal bankability as a narrower dimension of overall project bankability, focusing on whether project rights, financing protections, security interests, and remedies remain sufficiently clear, durable, and enforceable over the life of a financed infrastructure project. Using doctrinal legal research and a functional comparative method, the study develops a Tripartite Legal Bankability Framework comprising statutory resilience, technical security resilience, and enforcement resilience. Myanmar is examined against functionally comparable mechanisms in Thailand, Vietnam, and Singapore. The analysis identifies concerns relating to project continuity and regulatory change; the traceability of security rights across creation, publicity, third-party effectiveness, priority, and insolvency; and the predictability of judicial supervision from foreign-award recognition to execution. The comparison shows that legal resilience does not require eliminating governmental discretion, creating a single universal collateral registry, or excluding courts from arbitration. The study therefore proposes a Myanmar-specific Legal Resilience Model based on structured adaptability, through which project rights, financing protections, and remedies may remain more ascertainable when long-term infrastructure projects encounter change, distress, and dispute.

Keywords: Special Economic Zones, Legal Bankability, Legal Resilience, Project Finance, Myanmar