United Overseas Bank has just announced a financing agreement with Singapore-based company Royal GK, a company commissioned to help meet Myanmar’s rising demand for energy, reports Channel News Asia on April 20.
Royal GK, an engineering procurement and construction company, was contracted by the Myanmar Central Power Company to procure gas engines for the construction of a gas-fired electricity power plant in Hlawga, Yangon.
Myanmar needs power. According to the Asian Development Bank, only a quarter of Myanmar’s population of 51 million people currently has access to electricity.
Mr Ian Wong, managing director and head of group strategy and international management at the Singapore bank UOB, said the bank's business approach for Myanmar is to partner its clients in investing in industries that the country deems necessary to support its long-term economic growth.
He said that as Myanmar has prioritised the provision of power in the creation of new industries and job opportunities for the country, the bank is keen to finance companies such as Royal GK to help support the infrastructural needs of the country’s economic transformation.
The power plant is expected to start producing 175,000 megawatt-hours (MWh) of electricity per year when it is completed in June this year.