Myanmar has come a long way from the extreme isolation of the Ne Win era. Then Burma left the Non-Aligned Movement, imposed stringent visa restrictions on all travelers, and among foreign companies allowed only German armaments manufacturer Fritz Werner to operate inside the country. Today, by contrast, Myanmar is back in the NAM, has reasonable visa rules, and strongly encourages inward investment.

Still, however, it is way behind the times. One measure of that comes in a McKinsey Global Institute report released last week: Global Flows in a Digital Age: How Trade, Finance, People, and Data Connect the World Economy. This examines five major global flows of goods, services, finance, people, and data/communication. It also captures inflows and outflows relative to country size to gauge the connectedness of individual states.

Some of the most fascinating findings come in the final category of data and communication. Between 2005 and 2012, cross-border internet traffic increased by a factor of 18. Since 2008, international Skype minutes have grown sixfold, and roughly 40 percent of all international calls are now made this way. At the end of 2013, more than two-thirds of the global population had a mobile phone. In 2012, 2.7 billion people were connected to the internet.

Country rankings in the MGI Connectedness Index are also interesting. Heading the list are Germany, Hong Kong, the USA, Singapore and the UK. The top emerging market is Russia, at ninth place overall. From East, South and Southeast Asia are Malaysia (18), South Korea (20), Japan (21), China (25), India (30), Thailand (36), Indonesia (56) and Pakistan (85). The East Asian trio of South Korea, Japan and China all score highly on everything except people flows. The world’s top six connected cities are Dubai, London, Hong Kong, New York, Singapore and Tokyo.

A central argument made by the report is that connectedness boosts economic development, that countries benefit from boosting their inflows and outflows of goods, services, finance, people and data/communication. This is from page 6: “The most central countries to the global network of flows in our database can expect to increase GDP growth from flows up to 40 percent more than the least connected countries. For example, Thailand, a high-centrality country, would disproportionately benefit compared with Laos, its low-centrality neighbor.”

Needless to say, Myanmar does not feature at all in this 180-page report. Despite all the catch-up now being promoted by political leaders, it remains minimally linked to the global economy. Nevertheless, the potential for rapid change is considerable. Mobile penetration is slated to reach 80 percent by 2016, and internet use is also spreading. Other flows should increase as global business develops. The regional neighbourhood is very much open to cross-border flows.

Connecting Myanmar is therefore the next major phase in a long national evolution away from the disastrous hermit state created in the 1960s and 1970s.