NEWS - MYANMAR'S Trade Deficit Incr

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Subject: NEWS - MYANMAR'S Trade Deficit Increases Year after Year

MYANMAR'S Trade Deficit Increases Year after Year

YANGON (Sept. 2) XINHUA - Myanmar's trade deficit has been increasing
year after year since 1997, according to the latest Economic Indicators
issued by the Central Statistical Organization. 

Myanmar imported 762 million U.S. dollars' worth of commodities in the
first four months of this year, while exporting 399 million dollars'
worth of goods, producing a trade deficit of 363 million dollars in the
period. 

In 1998, there was a trade deficit of 1.686 billion dollars as the
import amounted to 2.824 billion dollars while the export went to 1.137
billion dollars. 

In 1997, the trade deficit amounted to 1.22 billion dollars as the
import stood 2.122 billion dollars while the export represented 902
million dollars. 

Myanmar's year-by-year increase of trade deficit is due mainly to being
unitary of its export items which are restricted to cover only
agricultural and marine products, timber and primary products. 

To tackle the problem arising from the trade deficit in the past years,
Myanmar, on the one hand, encourages entrepreneurs to produce
import-substitute goods, while, on the other hand, making efforts to
expand the range of export goods, add non-traditional commodities such
as natural gas in export items and increase the export quota of
processed and manufactured goods to enable its export goods value-added.