Myanmar's foreign trade hit 5.5 billion U.S. dollars in the fiscal year 2005-06, which ended in March, registering a new record high in 17 years since 1989 when the country began to move to the market-oriented economy, said Monday's Myanmar Times pre-published on Sunday.

With the total trade volume going up by over 12 percent from the previous year's 4.9 billion dollars, the export during 2005-06 reached 3.554 billion dollars, up from 2.9 billion dollars in the previous year, while the import was valued at 1.9 billion dollars, making not much difference comparatively.

During the year, a trade surplus of 1.6 billion dollars was gained with over 60 percent more than 2004-05's 954 million dollars.

The authorities attributed the increase of the total trade volume in 2005-06 to the true prices of export and import items quoted with traders's invoices for the fiscal year against the previous year.

Besides, the increase of prices of Myanmar goods in the international market also helped boost its foreign trade, it said.

Impacted by some Western sanctions since 2003, Myanmar's foreign trade volume dropped from 5.3 billion dollars in 2002-03 to 4.5 billion dollars in 2003-04 and only to bounce back to 4.9 billion dollars the following year.

Meanwhile, Myanmar only enjoyed trade surplus in the past four consecutive years since 2002-03, before which it suffered a trade deficit for many years.

According to official statistics, in 2004-05, the private sector accounted for more than 85 percent in its exports and more than 80 percent of the gross domestic product which grew to 12.2 percent in the year from 12 percent in the previous year.

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 2005-06.

Source: Xinhua