Myanmar’s crippling power outages are threatening the economic recovery of the conflict-ridden Southeast Asian nation, where a military coup in 2021 left the country struggling to source fuel for gas-fired electricity plants.
In the commercial capital Yangon, planned electricity cuts doubled in duration to eight hours a day in April, according to David Thoo, an analyst at Fitch Solutions unit BMI. That’s constraining manufacturers, S&P Global Market Intelligence said in a separate statement.
The country, which exports natural gas to Thailand and China, depends on imported liquefied cargoes of the fuel to power its own cities but has struggled to do so since the military junta seized power in a 2021 coup. Multiple rounds of sanctions by the U.S. and its allies to scuttle the regime’s efforts to generate revenue and procure arms have sapped the nation’s foreign-exchange reserves, leaving it with little to pay for fuel.