ASIA TIME
BERTIL LINTNER
November 3, 2021A Myanmar shopkeeper counts out kyat notes in Yangon's Pazundaung market in in March 2020. Photo: AFP
As Myanmar descends deeper and deeper into civil war, a conflict driven by nationwide resistance to the military’s disastrous democracy-suspending coup, the economy is taking the brunt of the chaotic collateral damage.
The February 1 coup sparked countrywide labor strikes, runs on banks and now rising warfare punctuated by bomb blasts in key urban areas including the commercial capital of Yangon.
That’s all put the economy in a tailspin while raising stability risks that have caused a growing number of foreign investors to either suspend or abandon their operations and outlays, many committed earlier on the belief Myanmar’s “last frontier” market was moving in a new hopeful democratic direction.