Aung Nyunt and a half-dozen other workers toil away there day and night, turning discarded tires into flip-flops, buckets and hard-to-find spare parts for used cars. Though military rulers handed over power to a nominally civilian government three years ago, paving the way for political and economic reforms, the vast majority of the country's 60 million people remain desperately poor. Machine parts, buckets and flip-flops — the most popular footwear in the rural areas — are among the biggest sellers for tire recyclers like Nyunt. Win's shop gets most of its most raw material — primarily huge tires from heavy trucks, tractors and backhoes — from government departments and private companies. "The economy is growing," he says, humming a song as he gingerly cuts a machine washer from a thick black tire with a 7-inch knife.