Myanmar to grow 6.3% in 2013

Myanmar would achieve 5.5% economic growth this year and 6.3% in 2013, the World Bank predicted Wednesday.

But the nation undergoing political and economic reforms was still one of the poorest in Asia with more than 26% of the population living below the poverty line of 1 dollar a day, the international development lender said.


With gross domestic product estimated at US$50 billion (1,500 billion baht) and a population of 48 million to 60 million, per-capita income was estimated at $800 to $1,000 per year, it said.

Myanmar was included for the first time in the World Bank's year-end East Asia and Pacific Economic Update, released Wednesday.

The bank and other international lenders, including the Asian Development Bank, returned to Myanmar this year after shunning the former pariah state for more than two decades.

The lenders' return was part of the lifting of economic sanctions by Western democracies in return for political and economic reforms by President Thein Sein since he came to office in the formerly military-ruled country in March 2011.

"Burma [Myanmar] can arguably be characterised best as a country on a triple transition path," the World Bank said.

The Southeast Asian country is moving from five decades under military rule to a democratic system, from 60 years of fighting ethnic insurgencies to relative peace and from a centrally directed, socialist economic system to a market-oriented, open economy, it said.

"Each of these transitions is complex and on their own would challenge the capacity of most states," the World Bank said. "In unfolding simultaneously, they also pose the risk that setbacks in any one of these realms will affect the others."

source: Bangkok Post
http://www.bangkokpost.com/breakingnews/326987/world-bank-myanmar-to-grow-6-3-in-2013