How Better Loans Help Myanmar’s Entrepreneurial Farmers Branch Out

A husband and wife struggled to save money for a side business, then they found a loan tailored to their needs.

Kan Ywar village in Myanmar’s Central Dry Zone is mostly serene and quiet. Roosters crow, bulls grunt, and cart wheels creak — occasionally, an engine somewhere putters.

If it weren’t for Daw Hlaing Hlaing and her husband U Aung Thu Win, that would be about it.

But with their stacks of speakers, a large soundboard covered in knobs and dials, and a sturdy microphone, the pair have been treating their neighbors and other villages to large doses of noise for over a year. And they’re charging good money for it.

Their sound system rental service serves an important purpose in Myanmar, where major life events — marriages, graduation ceremonies, religious ordinations — are celebrated at high volumes with cacophonous music.

Before they started this business, the pair supported themselves and their two young daughters with their income from farming sesame, ground nuts and pigeon peas.

A lack of access to good loans made it hard for them to save or invest. But with the help of a 300,000 kyat (roughly $200) crop loan from Proximity Finance, they were finally able to boost their profits enough to put some cash towards a side business.

“Without this support I wouldn’t have been able to get the business going,” said Daw Hlaing Hlaing.

Unlike other loans, Proximity’s products are tailored for farmers. So instead of making repayments every few weeks, Daw Hlaing Hlaing was able to repay after harvesting her crops. The interest is also lower than other loans on offer, she says.

So the couple were able to cover essential costs like fertilizer while planting without being hit with constant repayments before they’d made any money.

That gave them enough breathing room to buy a set of loudspeakers and a tuk tuk after the harvest. And so they started driving out to nearby villages to rent the speakers out for ceremonies.

They didn’t stop there. Customers kept asking them if they could also build stages and do costume makeup for weddings and Buddhist novitiations.

Now, the yard in front of their house is home to a disassembled stage and its intricately painted adornments, which they can transport to clients and set up on demand within two days.

Mythical creatures etched onto the stage cladding stare out from under a lean-to, which protects them from the harsh sun.

In a storage room at the side of the house, U Aung Thu Win rummages through wooden chests full of dazzling fabrics. There’s also a glass case full of artificial flowers, LED lights, pots of paint and 50 ceremonial umbrellas.

“We’re really proud we’ve created this,” he says, grinning. “Whatever ceremony it is, whatever event it is, we’ve got it covered.”

It took over six months to bring it all together, with the spouses doing most of the work themselves.

With the help of a second loan from Proximity, this one 600,000 kyat, the pair made a decent profit on their next harvest too. Freed from the sky-high interest rates they used to pay to finance their farm, they’ve been able to save up enough to keep growing the business.

This year they plan to break even on the speaker business and start turning a profit. And with the farm providing a steadier income than before, the family is ready to welcome its newest member; Daw Hlaing Hlaing’s third child is due later this year.

“The family’s getting bigger,” she says.