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Burma Targets 6.4% Economic Growt
- Subject: Burma Targets 6.4% Economic Growt
- From: moe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 06 Apr 1997 15:19:00
Subject: Burma Targets 6.4% Economic Growth Over Next Year
Dow Jones Business News -- April 3, 1997
Burma Targets 6.4% Economic
Growth Over Next Year
AP-Dow Jones News Service
BANGKOK (AP)--Burma's economic
planners are
aiming for 6.4% growth for the
1997-98 financial
year after reporting growth of 5.8%
in 1996-97.
An article in the state-run newspaper
New Light of
Myanmar estimated that gross domestic
output for
the upcoming year would total 75.1
billion kyats,
worth $12.11 billion at the official
exchange rate
of about 6.2 kyats to the dollar. The
free market
rate, however, is about 160 kyats to
the dollar.
The article, seen in Bangkok
Wednesday, was
published in Tuesday's edition.
Under targets set for the first year
of the
government's Five-Year Short-Term
Plan, the
leading sector, agriculture, is
projected to grow
6.3% to a value of 27.31 billion
kyats ($4.4 billion),
followed by processing and
manufacturing, with a
projected increase of 10.7% to 7.21
billion kyats
($1.16 billion).
The livestock and fishery sector is
projected to
grow 7.3% to 5.38 billion kyats
($867.3 million),
mining by 31.8% to 1.25 billion kyats
($201.3
million), and forestry by 2.0% to 771
million kyats
($124.4 million).
Exports are projected to increase to
5.9 billion
kyats ($951.6 million) from 5.2
billion kyats
($838.7 million), and imports to 11.2
billion kyats
($1.81 billion) from 10.8 billion
kyats ($1.74
billion).
The article said the Four-Year
Short-Term Plan
covering 1992-93 to 1995-96 was
'successfully
implemented,' exceeded its original
targets,
mainly because of accelerated growth in
agriculture.
According to provisional figures, in
1996-97 the
production sector increased by 6.2%,
the service
sector by 6.3% and the trade sector
by 5.8%, the
newspaper said.
Among Western economists and other
foreign
observers, there is a great deal of
puzzlement and
skepticism about the true state of
the Burmese
economy.
That is largely because the official
figures fail to
account for the role of the
difference between the
official and free market exchange
rates, but also
because of distrust of the statistics
released by the
country's military government, which
took power
in 1988. The government is shunned by
many
Western nations for its repressive
rule and allows
no freedom of information.
The military government has staked
much of its
legitimacy on its economic
performance, opening
up the economy after a
quarter-century of socialist
isolationism that reduced Burma to
one of the
world's poorest countries.
A U.S. Embassy report last year
painted a bleak
picture of the economy, with soaring
deficits,
declining foreign investment, rampant
military
spending and rising debt and reliance
on illicit
drug profits. Burma is the world's
largest producer
of opium and its derivative, heroin.
The government's failure last year to
make a
scheduled payment to a Japanese
supplier for
crude oil imports led to speculation
that Burma's
foreign exchange reserves were
stretched thin.
The government did not officially
comment on the
speculation.
While the lot of many people has not
improved
under the military regime, living
standards for
some are better, and a small middle
class has
emerged in Rangoon, the capital.