CIA FACTBOOK 1999 (BURMA) (r)

[celsus@xxxxxxxxxxx]

The CIA Factbook doesn't change a great deal from year to year.  Most of
its figures are a couple of years out of date and with regard to Burma they
seem to display fairly consistent patterns over the years.

But on the matter of Defence spending the Factbook is all over the
ballpark.  Compare the following data:

Year			Spending Est. 	(year)  	Percent of GDP

1997 Factbook 		$US 135 million  (1995-6)	NA
1998 Factbook		$US 380 million  (1996-7)	NA
1999 Factbook		$US 3.904 billion (1997-8)	2.1%

Take the CIA figures at face value (and that's always a doubtful
proposition) and that means Defence spending in fiscal 98 was about 10
times what it was in fiscal 97 .

Accepting the 3.908 billion figure would put the GDP at $US 186 billion.
Quite a difference with the GDP purchasing power parity figure of
$US 56.1 billion listed in the Economic section of the Factbook.

The $ 186 billion figure could perhaps be the unadjusted GDP corresponding
to a $ 155.5 billion figure listed in some sources as being the GDP for
1997 which comes out to a hefty 19.6% increase but acceptable,
nevertheless, in view of the fact that it would not take into account
inflation or exchange rate differences.

Anybody interested might want to keep in mind the following statement
contained in the report, Foreign Economic Trends: Burma, 1997, which
apprently used a quite different data base for establishing military
spending as a percentage of GDP.  Regrettably, the version of the FET
report posted in the on-line version available in the BurmaFund website
doesn't include the many indices with the data needed for comparison
purposes.  Perhaps someone with access to this data or to articles
published by Desmond Ball or Andrew Selth could help us here.

ES
-----------------------------

The Embassy estimates that in exchange-rate-adjusted terms, the GOB's total
defense-related disbursements, including both operating expenses and
service of undeclared debt related to prior-period military imports, may
have been consistently equivalent to between 8% and 10% of recorded GDP
from FY 91/92 through FY 94/95, and to more than 10% of GDP in FY 90/91, FY
95/96 and FY 96/97. Again, these estimates exclude implicit subsidies to
the Defense Ministry from other parts of the public sector, notably the
health system, the state petrochemicals monopoly (MPPE), the state
electricity monopoly (MEPE), and the state paddy quota procurement agency
(MAPT).
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>From the CIA Factbook 1999

GDP: purchasing power parity?$56.1 billion (1998 est.) 

Military expenditures?dollar figure: $3.904 billion (FY97/98) 

Military expenditures?percent of GDP: 2.1% (FY97/98)