Myanmar Coup Shatters Economy; Millions Hungry, Jobless

The military takeover in Myanmar has set its economy back years, if not decades, as political unrest and violence disrupt banking, trade, and livelihoods and millions slide deeper into poverty, Mainichi Japan reported.

Photo Insert: Villagers transporting goods on a boat in Inla, Myanmar

The Southeast Asian country was already in recession when the pandemic took hold in 2020, paralyzing its lucrative tourism sector. Political upheavals after the army ousted its civilian government on Feb. 1 have heaped further misery on its 62 million people, who are paying sharply higher prices for food and other necessities as the value of the kyat, the national currency, plummets.

With no end to the political impasse in sight, the outlook for the economy is murky. UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths appealed last week to Myanmar's military leaders to allow unimpeded access to more than 3 million people needing "life-saving" aid "because of growing conflict and insecurity, COVID-19, and a failing economy."

Griffiths said he was increasingly concerned about reports of rising levels of food insecurity in and around the cities. Hundreds of thousands of people in the country have lost their jobs and poverty has deepened as Myanmar's inflation has skyrocketed.

Myanmar's economy is forecast to shrink by 18.4% in 2021, according to the Asian Development Bank (ADB), one of the deepest recent contractions anywhere.

The civilian government ousted in February had been making slow but steady progress toward weaving impoverished Myanmar into the global economy after decades of quasi-isolation under past military regimes.

Myanmar's total trade fell 22% from a year earlier in the 10 months from October 2020 to July 2021, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, who led the army's takeover, recently told his military-installed cabinet. He said the country logged a trade deficit of $368 million.

The authorities suspended vehicle imports from Oct. 1 to conserve foreign exchange. To stanch the kyat's plunge, the Central Bank of Myanmar has intervened in the market 36 times since February. But such operations have had scant impact, traders say, since most dollars sold by the central bank go to pro-military businesses.

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