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Myanmar needs three main drivers to promote trade: World Bank

Xinhua, June 27, 2016 Adjust font size:

Myanmar needs three main factors to ensure inclusive trade growth for reducing country's poverty, according to a new report by World Bank on Monday.

The report, Myanmar Diagnostic Trade Integration Study, based on the study in cooperation with World Bank and Ministry of Commerce of Myanmar, has provided a road map for mainstreaming trade and competitiveness in Myanmar.

According to the report, the three main drivers for the country's trade growth are continued reform to reduce cost for the private sector to conduct trade, diversifying into sectors with high potential such as light manufacturing, services and sustainable agribusiness to rebalance the economy away from its overdependence on natural resources and developing soft infrastructure reform to help reap the benefit of hard infrastructure investment by reforming procedures and regulations along with strengthening institutional capacity.

Meanwhile, the report mentioned the recommendations for the country's skills shortage, improving access to finance, developing the tourism sector and connecting lagging regions to markets through better infrastructure.

World Bank Country Manager for Myanmar Abdoulaye Seck said that the country has a comparative advantage in its significant natural and agricultural resources, untapped labor and a location that shares borders with markets accounting for 40 percent of the world's population.

Moreover, the report said that a boom in country's trade and investment has boosted average economic growth by more than 7 percent per year. Not only garment exports grew threefold between 2005 and 2014 but also the tourism industry grew about 35 percent between 2009 and 2015. However, the country is still constrained by underdeveloped and fragmented institutions, bureaucratic delays that increase the costs of trade, and underdeveloped quality and standard infrastructure among others.

Myanmar's new government has targeted to boost the country's export volume three times higher within five years with the agricultural sector, said newly appointed Minister for Commerce Dr. Than Myint at his first meeting with local exporters in April.

Myanmar's trade deficit in the fiscal year 2015-16 reached roughly 5.3 billion U.S. dollars, increasing by 1.12 billion dollars year on year, according to the ministry of commerce. Endit