Sources of Myanmar’s economic growth during 2010–2015: input–output analysis

Abstract

This paper examines Myanmar’s economic structure and its sources of economic growth during the period of economic reformation from 2010 to 2015. The study compares the economic performance of Myanmar with that of four other ASEAN countries employing the backward linkage and deviation from proportional growth (DPG) approaches. The data used for the analysis are sourced from the Eora global database and the Asian Development Bank’s database. During 2010–2015, Myanmar experienced significant gross production expansion with the growth rate of 1.84 times, which stands as the highest among the selected countries. Despite its high economic growth, Myanmar lags behind the four other ASEAN countries in terms of industrialization and international trade. Myanmar’s economy mainly relies on domestic market with poor international trade record. The analysis of backward linkages reveals that the transport equipment sector made the largest contribution to output growth in Myanmar. On the other hand, DPG approach indicates that Myanmar’s economic growth during 2010–2015 can be mainly attributed to the expansion of the public administration sector, driven by increased consumption and public and private investment. Industrialization remained underdeveloped until 2015 with the manufacturing sectors not significantly impacting on economy and export growth. Despite some improvements in manufacturing sectors after 2016, the promotion of the manufacturing sectors and agriculture sector is still necessary to foster export and output expansion.