McKinsey Global Institute announced that Myanmar has the potential to grow by eight per cent a year if fundamentals like political and macroeconomic stability, the rule of law, as well as enablers such as skills and infrastructure are in place.
According to a report headlined 'Myanmar’s moment', the country is a highly unusual but promising prospect for businesses and investors – an underdeveloped economy with many advantages, in the heart of the world’s fastest-growing region.
“Home to 60 million inhabitants (46 million of working age), this Asian nation has abundant natural resources and is close to a market of half a billion people. And the country’s early stage of economic development gives it a “greenfield” advantage: an opportunity to build a 'fit for purpose' economy to suit the modern world,” the report said.
Managed well, Myanmar could conceivably quadruple the size of its economy, from $45 billion in 2010 to more than $200 billion in 2030 – creating upward of ten million non-agricultural jobs in the process. McKinsey's latest report discusses the challenges of meeting this ambitious goal and points to several areas that could help unlock high growth.
The report finds that if current demographic and labour-productivity trends continue, Myanmar could grow by less than four per cent a year. But it has the potential to grow by eight per cent a year if it accelerates the rate of annual labour productivity growth to seven per cent, from 2.7 per cent – “a difficult but not unprecedented feat.”
