Since the February 1 coup, the CBM has released more than US120 million into domestic markets in an attempt to combat the rapidly devaluing kyat. Workers who depend on businesses have been halved, ”said a businessman. The Myanmar kyat continues to weaken against the US dollar, despite the sale of American currency reserves to the private sector by the junta-controlled Central Bank of Myanmar (CBM). "Businesses are now able to do just a little bit of work because of the current price hike and now some factories have reduced their operations by half because some of the factories are no longer suitable for resale," he said. The less Myanmar exports, the less it earns in foreign currency mainly dollars making the greenback all the more scarce and valuable versus the kyat. In addition, the depreciation of the Myanmar currency has led to a rise in the value of the dollar due to the increase in the number of buyers, and the rise in the value of the dollar due to a large number of dollar holders and the fact that some businesses do not have dollars when they need to pay in dollars.īusinesses say the rise in the value of the dollar has led to the problem of overpriced commodity prices and the high cost of running raw materials to run a long-term business. On the other hand, what has happened is that the business is slowing down, ”said one businessman. "The main thing is that we can control the value of the dollar, so we can not produce as much as we want," he said.
Since then, the value of the dollar has risen to a record high of more than 1,800 kyats.īusinesses say rising dollar prices have pushed up commodity prices and slowed business operations.