28 April
TRADE between Myanmar and international trade partners crossed US$18.8 billion so far in the current fiscal year, an increase of over $130 million, or 0.7 per cent, from the cor-responding period last FY, the Ministry of Commerce reported this Friday.
During six and a half months, Myanmar exported $8.98 billion worth of domestic products to international buy-ers, and imported $9.8 billion worth of commodities, resulting in a trade deficit of over $844 million, which decreased by over $656 million, as against the same time last FY, when the country recorded a trade deficit of $1.5 billion.
Compared with last FY, the current import value declined by over $600 million from both border and non-border trade, while the current export value increased by over $740 million.
Goods are delivered mainly through by sea in internation-al trade. As of 19 April in the current fiscal, the country’s maritime trade amounted to almost $13.3 billion, whereas its external border trade was pegged at $5.5 billion.
When compared with this time last year, Myanmar’s non-border trade decreased by over $300 million but its border trade increased by over $460 million.
Normally, the country ex-ports seven major groups of commodities—agricultural, forest, marine and animal prod-ucts, minerals, manufactured products and other miscella-neous items. It usually imports four major categories of com-modities—capital goods, inter-mediate products, consumer goods and CMP raw materials.
During the 2018 mi-ni-budget period (April-Sep-tember), the country’s exports reached $8.8 billion while its imports were $9.8 billion, total-ling $14.2 billion.
The ministry’s statistical report indicated that Myan-mar-international trade exceed-ed $25 billion in the previous 2017-2018 FY.—Shwe Khine (Translated by Khaing Thanda Lwin)
