An “Asian Tiger” with no growth: How Minskaya Pravda exaggerated Myanmar’s success

Context: Aleksandr Lukashenko’s foreign tour began on June 26, 2026 with a meeting with Vladimir Putin in Valdai. Over the course of a week, he visited Russia, China, Indonesia, and Myanmar. Dmitry Krutoi, head of the Administration of the president, said the purpose of the visits was to discuss “presidential-level projects” worth tens of millions of dollars. After returning, Lukashenko disappeared from the public eye for several days. For the first time in many years, he did not appear at any Independence Day events on July 3.

On the July 8, 2026 edition of the Infopole program on the YouTube channel Politika. Minskaya Pravda, host Anton Sinkavets claimed that Myanmar — the final stop on Aleksandr Lukashenko’s tour — is a highly promising country with impressive economic momentum, poised to become a rapidly developing country.

“The third stop [on Aleksandr Lukashenko’s trip] is Myanmar. A country that experts call the ‘rough diamond’ of Southeast Asia. The country is showing impressive momentum. GDP growth is reaching 8% per year. If these rates are maintained, Myanmar’s economy could become a full-fledged “Asian Tiger” in five to seven years,” said Sinkavets.

Myanmar did indeed experience high rates of economic growth, around 6–8% per year. However, this was in the 2010s, when the country was transitioning to an open-market economy after decades of international isolation. Then came the COVID-19 pandemic. In February 2021, the military staged a coup, overthrew the elected government, and declared a state of emergency. After that, mass protests broke out across the country. The crackdown on the protests quickly escalated into armed conflict and a humanitarian crisis.

Since then, Myanmar’s economy has never fully recovered. According to World Bank data, from 2020 to 2025, it did not grow but declined by more than 3% per year on average.

Myanmar remains one of the poorest countries in the world. According to Worldometer’s ranking, which is based primarily on World Bank data, the country ranked 186th out of 218 countries and territories by GDP per capita in 2024. Therefore, the claim that Myanmar’s economy is currently growing at about 8% and will soon become the new “Asian Tiger” is not supported by current economic data.