According to International Monetary Fund (IMF) Myanmar GDP per capita in 2024 is estimated to reach $1.179 Burma has been the main trade route between China and India since 100 BC.

[12] Integrated into the world economy by force, economic growth in Burma was driven by the extractive industries and cash crop agriculture, and the country had the second-highest GDP per capita in Southeast Asia.

"Basic commodity prices have increased from 30% to 60% since the military regime promoted a pay rise for government workers in April 2006," said Soe Win, the moderator of the workshop.

[31] In 2011, when new President Thein Sein's government came to power, Burma embarked on a major policy of reforms including anti-corruption, currency exchange rate regulation, foreign investment laws and taxation.

[36] The $512 million loan is the first issued by the ADB to Myanmar in 30 years and will target banking services, ultimately leading to other major investments in road, energy, irrigation and education projects.

[40] According to one report released on 30 May 2013, by the McKinsey Global Institute, Burma's future looks bright, with its economy expected to quadruple by 2030 if it invests in more high-tech industries.

On April 30, 2021, the United Nations Development Programme published a report indicating that the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état in February 2021 could reverse economic gains made over the last sixteen years.

[51] The current state of the Burmese economy has also had a significant impact on the people of Burma, as economic hardship results in extreme delays of marriage and family building.

[52][53] Burma also has a low fertility rate of 2.07 children per woman (2010), especially as compared to other Southeast Asian countries of similar economic standing, like Cambodia (3.18) and Laos (4.41), representing a significant decline from 4.7 in 1983, despite the absence of a national population policy.

[54] This is at least partly attributed to the economic strain that additional children place on family income, and has resulted in the prevalence of illegal abortions in the country, as well as use of other forms of birth control.

[64] Other industries include agricultural goods, textiles, wood products, construction materials, gems, metals, oil and natural gas.

In March 2012, six of Thailand's largest garment manufacturers announced that they would move production to Myanmar, principally to the Yangon area, citing lower labour costs.

[69][74] Efforts to eradicate opium cultivation have pushed many ethnic rebel groups, including the United Wa State Army and the Kokang to diversify into methamphetamine production.

[75] The prominence of major drug traffickers have allowed them to penetrate other sectors of the Burmese economy, including the banking, airline, hotel and infrastructure industries.

[85] Debbie Stothard of the Alternative ASEAN Network on Burma stated that mining operators used drugs on employees to improve productivity, with needles shared, raising the risk of HIV infection.

[86] Richard W. Hughes, a Bangkok-based gemologist makes the point that for every ruby sold through the junta, another gem that supports subsistence mining is smuggled over the Thai border.

[88] The industry is completely under Chinese hands at every level, from the financiers, concession operators, all the way to the retail merchants that own scores of newly opened gem markets.

In recent years, the countries has auctioned its production in Hong Kong, first organized by Belpearl company in 2013 to critical acclaim and premium prices due to strong Chinese demand.

As of May 2010, foreign business visitors from any country can apply for a visa on arrival when passing through Yangon and Mandalay international airports without having to make any prior arrangements with travel agencies.

[100] This is a chart of trend of gross domestic product of Burma at market prices estimated by the International Monetary Fund and EconStats with figures in millions of Myanmar kyats.

[102] According to the CIA World Factbook,[103] Burma, a resource-rich country, suffers from pervasive government controls, inefficient economic policies, and rural poverty.

Most overseas development assistance ceased after the junta began to suppress the democracy movement in 1988 and subsequently refused to honor the results of the 1990 legislative elections.

"Thailand, for instance, the second biggest investor in Myanmar after China, is forging ahead with a bigger version of Thilawa at Dawei, on Myanmar's Tenasserim Coast ... Thai rulers have for centuries been toying with the idea of building a canal across the Kra Isthmus, linking the Gulf of Thailand directly to the Andaman Sea and the Indian Ocean to avoid the journey round peninsular Malaysia through the Strait of Malacca."

[107] China, by far the biggest investor in Burma, has focused on constructing oil and gas pipelines that "crisscross the country, starting from a new terminus at Kyaukphyu, just below Sittwe, up to Mandalay and on to the Chinese border town of Ruili and then Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province".

[citation needed] An influx of foreign capital investment from mainland China, Germany, and France has led to the development of new potential construction projects across Burma.

[113] Chinese private firms account for 87% percent of total legal cross-border trade at Ruili and have a considerable amount of structural power over the illicit economy of Myanmar.

Many Chinese state-owned enterprises have set their sights on Burma's high-value natural resource industries such as raw jade stones, teak and timber, rice, and marine fisheries.

According to the report, the guidelines require that programs run by humanitarian groups "enhance and safeguard the national interest" and that international organisations co-ordinate with state agents and select their Burmese staff from government-prepared lists of individuals.

The shameful behavior of Burma's military regime in tying the hand of humanitarian organizations is laid out in these pages for all to see, and it must come to an end," said U.S. Representative Tom Lantos (D-CA).

"US Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) said that the report "underscores the need for democratic change in Burma, whose military regime arbitrarily arrests, tortures, rapes and executes its own people, ruthlessly persecutes ethnic minorities, and bizarrely builds itself a new capital city while failing to address the increasingly urgent challenges of refugee flows, illicit narcotics and human trafficking, and the spread of HIV/AIDS and other communicable diseases.