Myanmar: Technical Assistance Report-External Sector Statistics Mission

IMF Staff Country Reports, February 18, 2020

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Verifying reasonable size of coverage adjustments for Myanmar’s imports using bilateral trade data from Thailand and China.
Illustrating how granular data can be used to determine proper adjustments to improve coverage of international merchandise trade statistics, using Thailand’s data on exports to Myanmar cross-classified by border checkpoint and 2-digit HS code.
Modification of the balance-of-payments compilation file used by the Central Bank of Myanmar Balance of Payments Section to accommodate suggested coverage adjustments for imports.
Introduction of a new estimation model for freight and insurance on imports proposed during the March 2019 mission.

Thailand’s export data cross-classified by border checkpoint and 2-digit HS code indicated potential under-coverage of Myanmar imports for a few checkpoints sharing a land border with Thailand.
Although the actual travel expenditure per person per day for certain years is likely to be lower than the time series published by the Ministry of Hotels and Tourism given continuous depreciation of Kyat over the past five years, this factor should unlikely outweigh the effect of growing numbers of inbound tourists.
The mission addressed verification work on the reasonable size of coverage adjustments for imports and operationalized changes in the Central Bank of Myanmar’s compilation processes.

Use of mirror (bilateral) trade data and granular cross-classified datasets (border checkpoint × 2-digit HS code) to identify and quantify under-coverage in merchandise import statistics.
Adjust the Central Bank of Myanmar Balance of Payments compilation file to incorporate coverage adjustments for imports.
Adopt the new estimation model for freight and insurance on imports as proposed in March 2019 to improve balance-of-payments estimates.