Myanmar’s foreign trade exceeded USD $ 34.9 billion for 2019 fiscal year

Myanmar’s foreign trade totaled $34.9 billion for 2019 Fiscal Year. This exceeded the estimates by about by $3.9 billion. 

However, the total volume of foreign trade was still $900 million lower than 2018 Fiscal Year ending on March 31, 2018.

“Our export volume increased by $470 million and trade deficit has dropped to $1.1 billion from $6 billion,” said U Khin Maung Lwin, Deputy Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Commerce. 

This is because of higher exports and lower imports.

“We managed to reduce some of the imports while increasing export. The sectors that benefited from increased exports were garments, gas, and seafood,” he added. 

Myanmar earned a total of $16.9 billion from exports. Agriculture accounted for $3.2 billion, fishery exports totaled $731 million from, extractive materials amounted to $1.4 billion, and another $10 billion was generated from industrial finished products. 

The import volume this fiscal year was $18 billion, a drop of $1.3 billion compared to the volume from the 2018 Fiscal Year. The import decrease was caused by the policy changes for vehicles and its accessory import as well as lower import of construction materials. 

The government switched the starting and ending dates for their fiscal year, which necessitated a six-month transitional fiscal year to make up the gap created with the change. The old fiscal year ran from April to March. The new fiscal year runs from October to September. 

The 2019 Fiscal Year was the first year the change was implemented, and it started on October 1, 2018, and ended on September 30, 2019. 

The change was made to help newly approved projects to immediately take off in construction instead of having to wait for the rainy season to end.

(Myanmar Business Today: https://www.mmbiztoday.com/articles/myanmar-s-foreign-trade-hits-349-billion-fy-2019 )

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