The Myanmar Times reported that Khaing Khaing Nwe, secretary general of the Myanmar Garment Entrepreneurs Association, said that due to the current situation of the pandemic, orders have decreased, suggesting that Myanmar’s garment industry needs to promote market diversification.

Secretary-General Khaing Khaing Nwe said, “We have many products exported to the European Union, but not many of them are sold to Central America and the Middle East, so we must try to develop these markets. The current Myanmar garment export markets include the European Union, South Korea, and Japan, and only a small part of them are exported to the United States. However, many of these countries are in an economic downturn and cannot place many orders. Myanmar still faces fierce competition from other garment exporting countries.”

 

Countries that originally imported textile materials from China may consider importing from India or Pakistan. The pandemic has caused the unemployment rate in Myanmar’s textile industry to rise. Up to now, up to 64 CMP plants have closed, causing more than 25,000 workers to lose their jobs.

 

The national export strategy shows the need for the garment industry to transform from the CMP to the FOB (Free on Board), to improve the ability of workers, and to expand market output. Driven by a plan led by the British DaNa Facility to encourage local garment factories to diversify their product lines, five local garment factories in Yangon and Bago have begun to produce PPE. Statistics from the Ministry of Commerce show that Myanmar’s garment exports in the 2019/20 fiscal year amounted to nearly USD 4.8 billion, a decrease of more than USD 63 million from the same period last year.