Irrawaddy-June 22
The US Treasury has imposed new sanctions on the Myanmar junta’s Ministry of Defense and two regime-controlled banks that facilitate foreign-currency exchange within the country, enabling transactions between the military regime and foreign markets to buy arms and related material. Myanmar has been in social and political turmoil since the 2021 military coup, and a bloody armed resistance against the regime has been raging across the country for more than two years. To support its efforts to crush the resistance, the regime has relied on foreign sources, including sanctioned Russian entities, to purchase and import arms and related items.
The two junta-owned banks sanctioned are Myanma Foreign Trade Bank (MFTB) and Myanma Investment and Commercial Bank (MICB), which primarily function as foreign-currency exchanges and enable the conversion of kyats to US dollars and euros, and the reverse.The banks “primarily function as foreign-currency exchanges” and have allowed Myanmar’s state-owned enterprises access to international markets using offshore accounts, helping them transact more easily with foreign entities, the statement added. Responding to a news report about possible sanctions published by Thai PBS prior to the US government’s announcement, junta regime spokesperson Major General Zaw Min Tun said on Wednesday that the two banks have no accounts with US-based banks, so the move would not impact the regime financially. However, following the sanctions news, most money changers in Myanmar suspended dollar transactions, causing the exchange rate to spike to 3,100 kyats to the dollar, from 2,960 kyats. Businesspeople and economic experts in Myanmar feared the kyat-dollar exchange rate would increase more in the coming weeks. Read more at:
