enterprises. We believe that this is the most appropriate classification for analyzing the problems
encountered by crop production in Myanmar in the course of internationalization.
Specifically, the categories comprise the following: export crops (rice and pulses), crops for
import competition (oilseeds), crops for the domestic market (vegetables, fruits, meat and fishery
products), and crops for state-owned enterprises (sugarcane and cotton).2
The contents of the paper are as follows. Section 1 reviews the development of the agricultural
sector since 1988 in the context of trends in the national economy as a whole. Section 2 discusses
performance, and analyzes the factors that have determined performance for each of the major
agricultural products contained in the four main categories of crop production. By way of conclusion,
the nature of Myanmar’s agricultural policies and the agricultural developments that can be
attributed to these policies will be briefly summarized.
1.
Performance of the Agricultural Sector in the National Economy
Let us first look briefly at the performance of the agricultural sector and its role in the overall
economic development of Myanmar.
Table 1 indicates the changes in the composition of GDP by sector and annual growth rates
since the early 1980s. The agricultural sector was surprisingly slow to lose its relative importance in
terms of its contribution to GDP, and accounted for more than 40 % of GDP even in recent years (at
1985/86 constant prices). This suggests that the agricultural sector has been growing at a pace equal
to those of the other sectors of the economy.
The table also shows that the GDP share of agriculture is significantly higher at current prices
than at 1985/86 constant prices. The discrepancy between the two widened very sharply between
1985/86-1990/91 and the divergence increased further until 1994/95. This means that agricultural
prices, which in the socialist period had been highly repressed compared to non-agricultural prices,
were ‘normalized’ by the mid 1990 s .3 In general, the rate of increase of agricultural retail prices was
higher than that of the CPI.