Military coup puts Telenor's future in Myanmar on the line

Since Myanmar's military ordered telecoms operators to shut their networks in an effort to end protests against its February coup, Telenor's business there has been in limbo.

However, Espen Barth Eide, who was Norway's foreign minister at the time Telenor gained a licence in Myanmar in 2013, told Reuters that Telenor should stay and use its position as a well-established foreign firm to be a vocal critic of the military. "But we argued at that time that, when we get in a western company that delivers telecommunication in a country, we stand also with some responsibility, and a bit of a guarantee that things are done correctly," Baksaas said.

"We told them that it's a complicated country which had a harsh military dictatorship. Telenor was very much aware of it ... It's not like they were novices," he added. Activist group Justice for Myanmar said in a 2020 report that Telenor had shown"an alarming failure" in its human rights due diligence over a deal struck in 2015 to build mobile towers that involved a military contractor.

Ooredoo has also said it"regretfully complied" with directives to restrict mobile and wireless broadband in Myanmar, which hit its first quarter earnings. It declined further comment on the outlook for its Myanmar business.

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