A list of preferred foreign life insurers permitted to operate in Myanmar will be announced on April 5,the Ministry of Planning and Finance (MOPF) said last week.

The MOPF is currently still in the midst of processing and selecting a list of qualified, foreign-owned life insurance providers to which it will issue licenses to operate after formally accepting Request for Proposal documents.

The list was originally scheduled for release on March 29.

Foreign insurance providers that do not qualify to operate as a wholly-owned foreign subsidiary or wish to cooperate with a local firm, should submit an Expression of Interest to form a joint venture with an eligible local insurance provider. The deadline to submit the relevant documents has been scheduled for May 3, the MOPF said.

U Soe Win Thant, director of Global World Insurance Company, a local private insurer, said his firm is in discussions with some foreign insurers to form a joint venture in the country. 

The MOPF officially permitted foreign life insurance providers to operate in Myanmar on January 2. It also allowed foreign non-life insurers to form joint ventures with local non-life insurers.

The new entities are expected to launch domestically within the current fiscal year, U Zaw Naing, the secretary of Insurance Business Regulatory Board, told the Myanmar Times in January. 

The aim is for foreign providers to bring technical know-how and international best practices to Myanmar   and help develop the insurance industry in the country. 

The government first drafted the Myanmar Insurance Sector Liberalisation Roadmap to allow foreign insurers in the local insurance market in 2013, the year it allowed 11 private local insurance firms to provide services in the local insurance market.

Since then, foreign insurers have opened 33 representative offices of in Myanmar including 10 from Singapore, five from Japan, four from Thailand, three from Hong Kong and one firm each from South Korea, India, US, UK, France, Taiwan, Vietnam, Germany, Malaysia, Cambodia, and Sri Lanka, according to the MOPF.