In Myanmar - Or Burma – went on stage a military coup. General Min Aung Hlaing, head of the armed forces, took power accusing politics, without any evidence, of having distorted the legislative elections last November, which had decreed the landslide victory of the Democrats. The coup comes one step away from the debut of the new Parliament, where the National League for Democracy would have had the majority. Leading the party is Aung San Suu Kyi, destined to become the new head of government, but since Sunday back in prison. Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1991 for the fight against the dictatorship that cost her a long prison, San Suu Kyi has recently been criticized internationally for not having opposed the persecutions of the Rohingya Muslim minority in the north of the country.
The current events will also have economic repercussions for Italy. While our country's commercial relationship with Myanmar is not particularly significant in absolute terms, in recent years - according to data from the Farnesina - trade between the two countries recorded constant growth, going from 126,5 million euros in 2015 to over 400,73 million in 2019. In the first eight months of 2020, due to the pandemic, trading fell by 19,38% on an annual basis: from our point of view, exports they dropped by 28,63% (to about 39 million euro) e imports by 17,08% (to just over 188 million).
As can be seen from the tables, Italy's trade balance with Myanmar is negative:
However, "the potential of bilateral economic relations remains enormous – reads in a study by infoMercatiEsteri updated December 2020 - Not only for the immense natural resources of Myanmar, but precisely in consideration of its (almost primordial) degree of development and therefore of its considerable needs, on the manufacturing, infrastructural, agricultural mechanization and agricultural transformation fronts. industry, as well as - in perspective - on the side of the increase in Italian exports which may derive from the improvement in the purchasing power of local consumers. Above all, the complementarity between the economic systems of Italy and Myanmar appears to be very strong, with our country which could offer know-how, machinery, finished products and investments, and former Burma which is rich in raw materials and in need of virtually everything”.
