Irrawaddy-Mar 10
When junta boss Senior General Min Aung Hlaing convened the Financial Commission in Naypyitaw last week, he was not merely presenting a budget for the 2026-27 fiscal year. He was constructing an economic fiction. Addressing officials, he unveiled a projected national GDP of 195.03 trillion kyats (about US$93 billion at official rates, or roughly $40 billion at market rates) and an expected economic growth rate of 3.4 percent. These figures bear little resemblance to conditions in a country fractured by nationwide armed resistance, drained by capital flight and suffocating under soaring prices. Beneath the inflated numbers lay a stark political message. Min Aung Hlaing insisted that the budget must lock in priority spending so that an “incoming government”—the same old generals in civilian dress who are scheduled to be sworn in early April—can continue the military’s agenda “without interruption.” But the data from the past five years show there is barely an economy left to inherit. While the junta’s 3.4 percent growth projection sounds confident, a chronological reading of the World Bank’s Myanmar Economic Monitor reports makes the scale of the distortion clear: the baseline upon which Min Aung Hlaing claims growth has been utterly gutted. This is the same Min Aung Hlaing who, in July last year, publicly dismissed the World Bank’s forecasts as “inaccurate and incomplete.” At the time, he claimed Myanmar’s GDP had reached $76.4 billion in 2024-25 and would rise to $81.6 billion in 2025-26. What he conveniently failed to mention was that this figure relies entirely on the junta’s artificial official exchange rate. Priced at the actual market rate, the real dollar value of the economy is a mere fraction of his claim—a reality ordinary citizens struggling with daily price hikes know all too well. Read more at:
https://www.irrawaddy.com/business/myanmar-junta-bosss-budget-built-on-economic-fantasy.html
