Three Japanese media companies are exiting a joint television production venture with Myanmar’s Shwe Thanlwin Group, according to the investigative monitoring organisation Justice For Myanmar (JFM).
The Shwe Thanlwin Group (STLG), founded and owned by military-linked businessman Kyaw Win, owns a 60 percent stake in the venture, called Dream Vision Co., Ltd., with the remaining 40 percent owned by the Japanese firms: Japan International Broadcasting Inc. (JIB), Cool Japan Fund Inc.—a public-private investment initiative—and the Fund Corporation for the Overseas Development of Japan’s ICT and Postal Services (JICT).
JIB is a subsidiary of Japan’s national broadcaster NHK. Some 90 percent of the Cool Japan Fund’s and JICT’s investments are from Japanese government funding and loans.
The Japanese companies moved to exit Dream Vision after civil society groups voiced concerns about Kyaw Win, whom they characterised as a junta propagandist, profiting from their participation in the project, according to a press release issued by JFM on Tuesday.
U Kyaw Win, founder and chair of the Shwe Thanlwin Group (Photo – Shwe Thanlwin)
The project’s goals included promoting Japanese media content and generating advertising opportunities for Japanese businesses, JFM noted, as well as providing equipment for Myanmar National TV, a channel managed by STLG’s subsidiary, the Shwe Thanlwin Media company (STLM).
JFM also highlighted that STLM has contributed to spreading the military regime’s propaganda via another joint venture, called Myanmar International Television, shared with the regime-controlled Myanmar Radio and Television Network, the earliest television network established in the country.
While all three Japanese companies confirmed they would be ending their partnership with Kyaw Win’s firm, they declined to comment on how the venture’s shares would be transferred or whether its profits would benefit supporters of the military regime, according to JFM spokesperson Yadanar Maung.
“By not addressing these questions, they heighten worries over their troubling lack of transparency and cast uncertainty on whether Japanese investors are fulfilling their human rights obligations,” she said.
Myanmar Now contacted STLM by email regarding the withdrawal of the Japanese firms from Dream Vision but has yet to receive a response.
Soon after it was established, Dream Vision planned to build studios at the corner of Malar Nwe and Pin Shwe Nyaung streets in Yangon’s Tamwe Township to produce television series, according to a project proposal the venture submitted to the the Myanmar Investment Commission (MIC) in 2017, during the administration of the National League for Democracy.
Known for his longstanding ties with both the current and previous military regimes, Kyaw Win is STLG’s owner and founder. According to its website, the group operates in the banking and real estate sectors as well as in media production.
Kyaw Win was among the top Myanmar businessmen who donated between 100 and 500 million kyat (US $23,000 to $115,000) towards the construction of an enormous marble statue of Buddha erected by junta chief Sen-Gen Min Aung Hlaing in Naypyitaw in 2023.
Following Myanmar’s earthquake in March, Kyaw Win has also reportedly agreed to contribute to the construction of new buildings valued at two billion kyat (US $455,000) each as part of a reconstruction scheme using funds from military-connected crony businessmen and the ethnic armed groups United Wa State Army and Mongla Army (also known as the NDAA).
