Mizzima

According to the data available, the remittances made by Myanmar workers have reached over US$1.5 billion in the last six months.

According to data released by Myanmar foreign missions, the remittances made by Myanmar workers mainly from Thailand, Malaysia, Japan and Singapore in the period from 1 November 2022 to 28 April 2023 total over US$ 1.5 billion.

People are leaving Myanmar for foreign countries for work as the job opportunities at home fell sharply after the coup as the economy slowed down.  

The remittances made by Myanmar nationals working in Thailand in the last six months from 1 November 2022 to 28 April 2023 were US$496.49 million and Thailand stood first in this regard.

This figure is the remittances received by the Authorized Dealers (AD) banks in Myanmar in the last six months since it started adding supplementary money to the remittances six months ago. The foreign missions of Myanmar released the remittance figures from their respective countries as US$360 million from Singapore, US$211.58 million from Malaysia, US$202.29 million from South Korea and US$117.53 million from Japan respectively.

In transferring Workers’ Remittances, Myanmar workers transferred in the local currencies from their countries and Myanmar AD banks received them in US dollars so that they had to adjust the exchange rate with them and it was fixed between 2,865 and 2,870 kyat per dollar.

The Myanmar authorities allowed workers to travel to foreign countries for work since May 2022. Most of these workers went to Thailand and Malaysia. In Thailand alone, the number of Myanmar workers who went on MoU is over 150,000 within a year.

According to the data released by the Labour Department of Myanmar, the remittances made by Myanmar workers from 2014 to 2022 are US$6.15 billion.