Kan Zaw ( my, ကံဇော်, born 11 October 1954) is the current Union Minister for Ministry of Investment and Foreign Economic Relations. He previously served as Union Auditor General under

Min Aung Hlaing Min Aung Hlaing ( my, မင်းအောင်လှိုင် abbreviated: MAL ; born 3 July 1956) also known as Alaungsithu is a Burmese politician and army general who has ruled Myanmar as the chairman of the State Administration Coun ...

. He was the Minister for National Planning and Economic Development of Myanmar from September 2012 to March 2016. From March 2011 to September 2012, he served as its deputy minister.

Early life and education

Kan Zaw was born on 11 October 1954 in

Salin Township Salin Township ( my, စလင်း မြို့နယ်) is a township of Minbu District in the Magway Division of Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating ...

Magwe Division Magway Region ( my, မကွေးတိုင်းဒေသကြီး, ; formerly Magway Division) is an administrative division in central Myanmar. It is the second largest of Myanmar's seven divisions, with an area of . Pa Del Dam (ပဒ� ...

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

(now Magwe Region, Myanmar). He received a Bachelor of Economics at the

Yangon Institute of Economics The Yangon University of Economics (formerly the Institute of Economics, Yangon; my, ရန်ကုန် စီးပွားရေး တက္ကသိုလ် ) is the finest university of economics and business in Myanmar. Founded as ...

, and graduated from the

International Institute of Social Studies The International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University Rotterdam is an independent and international graduate school of policy-oriented critical social science. ISS was established in 1952 by Dutch universities and the Neth ...

in 1984 from a Master of Art in Regional Development Planning. Kan Zaw also holds a Doctorate in Literature.

Career

Kan Zaw has had a long career with the

, having served as a professor, department head and ultimately as rector. In February 2021, in the aftermath of the

2021 Myanmar coup d'état A coup d'état in Myanmar began on the morning of 1 February 2021, when democratically elected members of the country's ruling party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), were deposed by the Tatmadaw—Myanmar's military—which then veste ...

, the military junta, the

State Administration Council The State Administration Council ( my, နိုင်ငံတော်စီမံအုပ်ချုပ်ရေးကောင်စီ; abbreviated SAC or နစက) is the military junta currently governing Myanmar, established by Comm ...

, appointed Kan Zaw as Union Auditor General, replacing Maw Than. After accepting the military appointment, Kan Zaw's family became the target of a social punishment campaign. In November 2021, the ASEAN Federation of Accountants (AFA) conference courted controversy for inviting Kan Zaw as a "guest of honour." In response, several accounting bodies, including the

Institute of Management Accountants The Institute of Management Accountants (IMA), formerly known as the National Association of Cost Accountants (NACA), is a professional organization of accountants. History IMA was founded in 1919 in Buffalo, New York as the National Associ ...

and

Japanese Institute of Certified Public Accountants The Japanese Institute of Certified Public Accountants (JICPA) is the sole organization for the CPA profession in Japan. It was originally formed in 1949 as a self-regulatory association, and reorganized under the Certified Public Accountants A ...

withdrew from the conference. In November 2022, the European Union imposed sanctions on Kan Zaw as part of a targeted economic and travel sanction effort on Burmese junta officials.

Personal life

Kan Zaw is married, and has three children, including Khine Ngwe Hnin Zaw.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kan Zaw Government ministers of Myanmar Living people 1954 births Burmese economists