YANGON — Weathernews has opened a location here in Myanmar’s biggest city to process and produce content for its mainstay business of global climate information services for shipping companies.
The company, based in Chiba Prefecture, collects and analyzes meteorological information from seas worldwide to provide weather information that helps shipping companies with tasks such as choosing safe routes. The Yangon base will be analyzing and processing the information along with the existing locations in Japan, the U.S., Denmark and the Philippines.
Weathernews hired some 20 staffers including maritime university graduates to kick off the new operations. It plans to increase the number to about 40 by next spring. The company finds it easy to hire shipping-related specialists in Myanmar, as maritime universities here attract a pool of excellent talent because ship crews have high social standing in the country. Myanmar has been a main source of international crew members for Japanese shipping companies along with the Philippines and India.
More Japanese companies are tapping science, technology and engineering talent in Myanmar, with some businesses such as NTT Data using the country as an offshore software development base.
Source: Nikkei Asian Review
