theceomagazine.com | 27The CEO Magazine: Tell us more about
Beca’s presence in both the Singapore
and Myanmar markets.
Ang Seng: In Singapore and Myanmar, we
focus primarily on buildings. In Singapore,
we are regarded by some architects and
clients as one of the top three engineering
consulting firms. I dare to say one of the top
three because of the number of large projects
we have undertaken, since by size we are not
the largest. Obviously, Singapore is a very
developed country. But because of the
property cooling measures that were put in
place by the government, development in the
private sector has slowed down significantly
over the past three to four years. However,
the government has been developing lots
of infrastructure projects, institutions and
buildings, and that helps the built
environment industry.
Over the past two years, our focus has
been on doing public sector projects. We have
other private sector projects for some of the
hotels and so on, but the main part of our
work is focused on government projects. In
Myanmar we are quite small, a team of about
40 people. We set up the Myanmar operation
more than 10 years ago, pretty much like a
low-cost production centre. Since last year,
we have begun to upscale the office to train
our team to become engineers. One of the
initiatives we’ve got is to transfer people from
Myanmar to Singapore for one to two years,
or even longer, and then we send them back
again, so that they become well-equipped
engineers and can lead their team locally in
Myanmar. Now, I have a Country Manager
based in Myanmar who looks after the
operations and talks to me directly.
What has it been like working in
Myanmar? The country itself has
had quite an eventful history.
That’s right, it has only opened up in the
past two years with the Aung San Suu
Kyi-led government. They are beginning
to put regulatory systems in place for
standards and consistencies. For example,
in the building space, they are putting
more procedures and systems in place.
The country is still quite backwards
in terms of development with weak
infrastructure. But being an emerging
market, Myanmar attracts lots of interest
from investors who are keen to put their
money there to build new infrastructure
and buildings. In recent times, we have been
involved in designing a Grade A office tower.
There aren’t many in Myanmar but we are
building one there now.It is encouraging that Myanmar is finally
developing as a nation. Do you worry
that the situation in Rakhine might
deteriorate and regress?
I’m not too concerned, but I do have to
keep a close eye on the situation. The current
unrest in Rakhine State involving the
Rohingyas is rather unfortunate. But in cities
like Yangon, it is very much business as usual
with development of new buildings. If you
go to Yangon now, you will see high-end
shopping malls open for business. Ten years
ago, you would not have seen such buildings.
I’m very confident that Myanmar will
continue to progress well as a country even
though it’s not as fast as we would like.
I know that some Chinese investors are
going into the country to invest in building
high-rise buildings.How are you able to juggle the needs of
two markets at sharply contrasting stages
of their economic development?
Internally, I’m respectful of the different
cultures and practices, but in terms of
knowledge transfer and equipping people, I »“ If you go to Yangon now, you will
see high-end shopping malls open for
business. Ten years ago, you would
not have seen such buildings.”
Interview | INSPIRE