Myanmar witnessed a foreign trade surplus of 1.1 billion U.S. dollars in 2005, a local news journal reported on Tuesday.

With exports amounting to 2.77 billion dollars and imports at over 1.6 billion, the country hit a foreign trade volume of 4.379 billion dollars in the year, the Weekly Eleven quoted latest release of the Ministry of Commerce as saying.

Of the exports, the private sector contributed 54 percent, while the government sector took 46 percent, it said.

Myanmar's national gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate stood at 12.2 percent in 2005, up from 12 percent in 2004, the report also quoted Minister of National Planning and Economic Development U Soe Tha as saying.

Although the country's foreign trade surplus and GDP growth in 2005 were satisfactory, the inflation rate of nine percent requires to be brought down to five percent, said U Soe Tha, who is also Secretary of the government's Trade Council, at a recent meeting with exporters and importers in the country.

Meanwhile, the Myanmar authorities have urged traders in the country to export more raw goods of high value added so as to fulfill a foreign trade volume of 5 billion dollars in 2006, with the exports projected at 3 billion.

Thailand stood as the Myanmar's No. 1 trade partner, followed by Singapore, said the report.

Myanmar mainly exports natural gas, marine and forest products as well as agricultural products such as beans and pulses.

There are about 10,000 exporters and importers in Myanmar, according to the authorities.

In August last year, Myanmar authorized the Trade Council, the highest commerce authority, to directly issue export and import licenses to businessmen doing foreign trade in the country as one of the measures to simplify foreign trade procedures.

Myanmar has set a target of 1.5 billion dollars of bilateral trade with China, 1 billion with India and 50 million with Vietnam in the years ahead, according to the report.

Source: Xinhua