According to the data released by the Myanmar Military Council’s Ministry of Economy and Commerce, the trade deficit of the country is over US$835 million in the period from 1 April to 22 September in this 2023-24 financial year as import value is much more than the export value of the country in this period.

The trade deficit in the corresponding period of the last fiscal was over US$150 million. It has now jumped up to over US$835 million this year.

The consecutive trade deficits may increase the prices of imported commodities and services and also it may cause falling prices of a country's exports in the global market and moreover it may weaken the Myanmar currency Kyat.

Myanmar’s total trade value in this fiscal year from 1 April to 22 September is US$15 billion and of which the import value in this period is over US$8 billion and the export value is over US$7 billion.

The value of seaborne trade declined in this period but the border trade value is over US$4.589 billion, a rise of over US$700 million compared with the corresponding period in the last fiscal year.

The export value declined by nearly US$1 billion than the previous year but the import value rose by over US$56 million.

Business people put blame on unnecessary trade and monetary policies imposed by the Military Council for the rising trade deficit of the country.

The traders and businesspersons said that instability in the country, difficulties in transport and power shortage and outage in the country had impacts on the country’s export and manufacturing.

In the import sector, the imports of consumer goods and CMP garment industry raw materials are declining but rising in other sectors.

Before the coup, the foreign trade value in the first half of the 2019-20 fiscal year was US$19.603 billion and after the coup it fell to US$16 billion in the first half of the 2022-23 fiscal year.