4 - Socialist Period under Military Rule, 1962–88: Sectoral and Social Developments

Summary

“… the real wealth of a nation is its people — both women and men. And the purpose of development is to create an enabling environment for people to enjoy long, healthy and creative lives”.

UNDP, Human Development Report, 1995

A. Introduction

Development trends in the structure of production generally indicate the economic progress of an economy. In general, as the economy develops over time the share of industry in GDP grew and that of agriculture declined.

In Myanmar, paradoxical as it may seem, a low priority accorded to the development of the agricultural sector and the unremarkable performance of it for most of the twenty-six years from 1962 to 1988 did not prevent it from maintaining or even slightly increasing its share in GDP. This is because neglect as well as mismanagement of the agricultural sector led to a vicious cycle of stagnant or falling exports, leading to balance of payments and budgetary constraints, and further to low investment, slow industrialization, and low growth. Of course, the fact that industrial development was led by the state (managed by military men with little or no experience in management) and that it was an import-dependent type of import-substituting industrial development only made matters worse.

On the bright side, significant gains were made, though not without blemish, in some of the social sectors. Adult literacy rate grew from 60 to 80 between the late 1960s and 1980s, and the number enrolled in primary schools as a percentage of the age group increased from forty-four to fifty-four during the same period. In the health sector, life expectancy rose from forty-four to fifty-four, infant mortality rate declined from 129 to 50, and the number of persons per physician, from 15,560 to 3,900 during the same period. But over-zealous and over-patriotic attempts to introduce the Burmese language as the medium of instruction in higher education in 1965, together with frequent disruptions of learning and discontinuity of the educational process due to the shutdown of schools and colleges, led to the decline in the quality of education.

B. Sectoral Developments

Table 4.1a and 4.1b show changes in the distribution of GDP by sectors during the socialist period under military rule. Lack of development during that period is clearly reflected in the unchanging structure of the economy.