Economy of Myanmar
Population 54 million.
The main industries are oil and gas exploitation, small machinery manufacturing, textile, printing and dyeing, rice milling, wood processing, sugar making, paper making, fertilizer and so on.
Agriculture is the foundation of the national economy. The main crops are rice, wheat, corn, peanut, sesame, cotton, beans, sugar cane, oil palm, tobacco and so on. The main forest products are teak, pear and other hardwoods and rattan. Myanmar's main agricultural exports are beans and rice.
Livestock and fisheries are mainly private operations. Myanmar's government allows foreign companies to fish in the defined waters, charging foreign boats a fee. Aquatic products are exported to many countries and regions.
The World Bank report said that due to internal conflicts, trade and logistics difficulties, exchange rate instability, inflation and other factors, the economic growth rate is expected to be only 1% in the fiscal year 2023-2024, and the difficulties faced by the development of agriculture, manufacturing and trade will be further expanded in the future.
According to statistics released by the Ministry of Commerce of Myanmar, Myanmar's manufacturing exports in the 2023-2024 fiscal year were more than $8.8 billion, down $2.09 billion from the 2022-2023 fiscal year.
Major trading partners: China, Thailand, Singapore, Japan, South Korea.
The main export commodities are: natural gas, rice, corn, beans, aquatic products, rubber, leather, mineral products, wood, pearls, gems and so on.
Main imports: fuel oil, industrial raw materials, chemical products, machinery and equipment, spare parts, hardware products, consumer goods.
In the fiscal year 2023-2024, Myanmar attracted $661 million in foreign investment, mainly from Singapore, China, Thailand and other countries. Among the fields of foreign investment, the power industry ranked first, accounting for 28.48%, followed by the oil and gas sector, and the manufacturing sector, accounting for 24.44% and 14.43% respectively.
There are five state-owned banks in Myanmar: the Central Bank of Myanmar, the Myanmar Agricultural Bank, the Myanmar Economic Bank, the Myanmar Foreign Trade Bank, and the Myanmar Investment and Commercial Bank. Private banks have been allowed since 1992, and foreign banks have been allowed to set up representative offices in Myanmar since 2016. At present, foreign banks such as Bank of China, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Vietnam Investment and Development Bank, Singapore United Overseas Bank, Japan's Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi and Korea Development Bank have opened branches in Myanmar.
China and Myanmar are friendly neighbors connected by mountains and rivers. The traditional friendship between the two peoples goes back to ancient times.
China is Myanmar's largest trading partner and source of investment.
China mainly exports complete sets of equipment, mechanical and electrical products, textiles, motorcycle parts and chemical products to Myanmar, and mainly imports logs, sawn timber, agricultural products and mineral products from Myanmar. In order to expand imports from Myanmar, China has twice announced that it will unilaterally provide preferential tariff treatment to a total of 220 Myanmar products exported to China.
In 2023, the trade volume between China and Myanmar was 20.95 billion US dollars, down 15 percent year on year. Among them: China's export to Myanmar was 11.4 billion US dollars, down 13.3% year-on-year; China's imports from Myanmar were 9.55 billion U.S. dollars, down 16.9 percent year on year.
After the entry into force of the RCEP, Myanmar has made new commitments to China on rice, traditional Chinese medicine, gum, oil, wine, feed oil residue, chemicals, plastics and their products, wood products, asbestos products, automobiles, motorcycles and other commodities imports on the basis of the China-Asean FTA, which will help relevant Chinese enterprises to further explore the Myanmar market. At the same time, China's imports of Myanmar's canned pineapple, pineapple juice, coconut water, pepper, diesel and other chemical fuels, some chemicals, paper products, diesel engines, vehicle lighting and signaling devices, window lifters and other commodities have also been further reduced on the basis of the China-Asean Free Trade Agreement, which is conducive to Chinese enterprises to expand imports of related products from Myanmar.