An economically illiterate junta is running Myanmar into the ground
Last year’s coup has put the country’s economy in a tailspin
Queues snake away from open-backed trucks that sell cooking oil on the streets of Yangon. Since July people in Myanmar’s commercial capital have stood for hours in the tropical heat and rain to buy discounted oil from wholesalers. At 3,000 kyats ($0.90) a kilo it costs about half what it would on the open market. That still makes oil almost 50% dearer than it was last year, before a military coup put Myanmar’s economy into a tailspin.
This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “General chaos”
Asia September 17th 2022
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