Disasters costing Burma 3% of GDP
By Nay Phyo Win Burma is losing an average of three percent of its GDP due to natural disasters, according to Vice-President Henry Van Thio, who is also the chair of the country’s National Disaster Management Committee.
Speaking at the launch of the Myanmar Action Plan on Disaster Risk Reduction (MAPDRR-2017) event in Naypyidaw yesterday, the vice-president said, “Myanmar experiences an average annual loss of 3 percent of national GDP due to natural disasters, while globally direct economic losses attributed to disasters are rising dramatically and reached about US$ 1.4 trillion over the last decade.”
According to a front-page report in today’s state-run Global New Light of Myanmar, over the past three years “small- and medium-scale disasters and climate-induced disasters such as floods and cyclones are on [the] rise.”
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