Shah Suraj Bharat reflects on how missing public data stymies market decision-making.
It would not have taken an expert to correctly predict that the return of absolute military rule in Myanmar in 2021 would mark a resurgence of state control and cronyism over major sectors of the economy, shutting out competition and prioritising political obedience over economic efficiency.
Nonetheless, a question that market actors – including international and domestic enterprises and investors – continue to grapple with is to what extent the economy has become a closed shop. The answer to that will allow such actors to develop a forward-looking strategy for business continuity, and in some cases, avoid divestment.
These considerations are important given the dour economic outlook in Myanmar. Amid sham elections installing the now-former military leader Min Aung Hlaing as a civilian president, the Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) April 2026 forecast stated Myanmar will grow 2.3% in 2026 and 3% 2027. However, this growth trajectory still means the “economy will not return to its pre-pandemic level before 2030.”
Reading this data as a lost decade of growth would be an understatement, considering that before the military takeover, Myanmar was on a trajectory to reach middle-income status by 2030. Many businesses and investors set up shop at a time of optimism and implemented business models designed to profit from expanded economic activity and higher consumer incomes.
With this sense of optimism being extinguished following the military takeover, dozens of businesses with capital mobility have exited the market. For those who have remained in the hope that they can soon expand or compete again, a heuristic worthy of analysis is the timely release and quality of key economic data. More fundamentally, however, is its availability – and if not publicly available, then to whom is such data known?
While organisations, including the World Bank, EIU, and Asian Development Bank, continue to deliver vital data, such as GDP growth and inflation statistics, the absence of sectoral-level data reduces supply and demand, pricing, and competition modelling to informed guesswork.
For example, consider a food processing machinery manufacturer seeking to expand operations. Without production, sectoral investment, and company registration data, they have fewer tools to assess whether an investment would coincide with five other manufacturers opening shop, potentially leading to excess supply and downward pressure on prices.
The provision of data is currently troubling, as there has been a de facto halt of public service from the Central Statistics Organisation (CSO). Its key data release, the Selected Monthly Economic Indicators, has not been published since August 2022, and the Quarterly Statistics Bulletin has not been published since the January-March quarter of 2023. While a statistical yearbook continues to be published annually, the 2025 version does not contain fully updated data, and only physical copies are publicly available.
This sorry scenario is reflected across other providers of official data. The Myanmar Investment Commission previously provided company registration, shareholding, corporate filing, and investment data on a routine basis, but these services have been halted for over two years now.
Indeed, the MyCo corporate filings register was deliberately scrubbed in 2022, with commentators saying the move would shield military-linked shareholdings and help establish front companies to evade sanctions.
This absence of publicly available data does not mean that data collection has stopped, although there are gaps, such as the inability to collect data in conflict areas and a shortfall of skilled staff following Civil Disobedience Movement resignations. The data is just not being released publicly, as this would undermine the military administration’s dubious claims that the economy has not declined to the extent that international institutions forecast in the years since the military takeover.
Very occasionally, state media will report data that is not found in official databases. My contacts who remain in the Myanmar civil service tell me they have access to most economic data as they did prior to the military takeover, albeit with shortfalls in data quality. My business contacts have said that data availability often depends on an individual or firm’s connections within the state apparatus.
This selective opacity reflects the architecture of a patrimonial economy. This is where state officials give personnel loyal to them or those important to the success of their bureaucratic programmes the opportunity to monopolise information, with private parties allowed access to information by demonstrating fealty.
This structure is symptomatic of a setting where the administration is ruling in its own interest and that of its supporters without concern for the sidelined and politically neutered general population. This analysis will, of course, come as no surprise to anyone in Myanmar. Nonetheless, if this trajectory continues, the consequence of this patrimonial architecture is an economy that closes in on itself and further dampens the outlook for businesses looking for a recovery.
When access to information becomes a privilege rather than a right, markets cannot function efficiently. Prices cannot be discovered, risks cannot be properly assessed, and capital cannot be allocated to its most productive uses. Entrepreneurs and investors who might otherwise tolerate political risk will not tolerate a fundamentally uneven playing field, and so they will ultimately look elsewhere.
This is precisely the dynamic that has historically condemned patrimonial economies to long-run stagnation. Myanmar’s investment climate, already battered by political instability and conflict, will be further corroded by this deliberate informational asymmetry.
Shah Suraj Bharat is an emerging markets consultant with a focus on the Asia-Pacific. He was formerly the Myanmar Country Manager of FMR Research & Advisory.
