https://www.mmtimes.com/news/govt-bans-mlm-firms.html
Govt bans MLM firms
The Ministry of Commerce (MOC) on September 18 issued notification (46/2018) which prohibits the business of multi-level marketing (MLM) in Myanmar. The ban will take effect immediately.
Action will be taken against all MLM businesses found to still be in operation after the date of the issued notification, under the Essential Supplies and Service Law. The law states that those found to be in violation of the regulations could be punished with a minimum of six months up to a maximum of three years in jail. There will also be a fine not exceeding K500,000.
The move comes after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) met with 41MLM companies and conducted audits on the companies’ books in February.
“We are taking action after studying this field and having found that many consumers have fallen victim to MLM strategies. At the regions and states, some regional governments have already prohibited MLM businesses from operating,” said U Khin Maung Lwin, assistant secretary of the MOC.
U Maung Maung, secretary of the Myanmar Consumers Union, said his organisation has “always been opposed to MLM. We have been calling for further regulation of this business model as many consumers have been negatively impacted by MLM,” he said.
Myanmar Times (copyright 2018)
Good news for Myanmar, but yet even the secretary of the Consumers Union makes the fateful mistake of calling MLM a business model.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your insight Shuga - although it remains to be seen whether this ban will actually have the desired effect. Remember, blame-the-victim 'MLM' cultic racketeering was supposedly identified and banned in China, but it is still causing great damage there.
DeleteThe secretary of the Myanmar Consumers Union evidently doesn't yet understand that, since the 1940s, the constant-repetition of a (largely-unchallenged) thought-stopping 'business' jargon, is how the pernicious 'MLM' fairy story has been spread.
I have lost count of the number of (apparently, well-educated) 'MLM' observers - particularly, business journalists and business regulators - who have made the mistake of thoughtlessly-repeating the ritual 'MLM' jargon. Thus, unintentionally giving this titanic lie, validity.
That said, since the 'MLM' fairy story has precious little to do with business (in the traditional sense of the word), perhaps the last people who should ever have been tasked with looking at 'MLM, are business journalists and business regulators.
In the final analysis, this has been the equivalent of equestrian experts being unable to detect the underlying nature of a Trojan Horse, because they can only express themselves in an equestrian vocabulary.