Cash-Strapped Myanmar Regime in Money-Printing Frenzy

The military regime has resorted to printing money to finance ballooning budget deficits as tax revenues collapse and spending on its forever-wars against the population surges. Economists estimate that more than 70 percent of the deficit is now covered by borrowing from the Central Bank of Myanmar (CBM), effectively through the printing presses.

At the Wazi Printing Factory in Mandalay’s Kyaukse Township, staff have been ordered to work without weekends or holidays to churn out new banknotes, sources inside the works told The Irrawaddy.

Established in the 1970s and run by the Ministry of Defense, the factory produces lottery tickets, official seals, and security documents as well as printing all denominations of banknotes including the newly issued 20,000‑kyat note.

Some workers complain of exhaustion as production lines run round the clock at the orders of management—a colonel and lieutenant colonel in the army.

“The two departments printing currency are being forced to work nonstop. Staff are exhausted,” one employee said.

The money-printing frenzy reflects the regime’s deepening fiscal crisis. Nationwide there is simply no more tax to collect, leaving the regime dependent on newly printed notes to fund its murderous military operations on top of having to pay for a massive government apparatus.

Australian economist Sean Turnell, a one-time advisor to the ousted National League for Democracy (NLD), believes that over 70 percent of the deficit is now financed by printing money.

Since the coup, Myanmar’s defense budget has expanded at a pace unmatched by other sectors. In fiscal year 2021–22, military spending stood at 1.7 trillion kyats, rising to 5.6 trillion in 2023–24. Since then the regime has stopped disclosing the figure. The total national budget hit a record 41 trillion kyats in 2024-25, and financial experts estimate that defense consumes at least 30 percent, not least to fund the mass conscription drive.

Under the democratically elected NLD government in 2019–20, defense accounted for 10.4 percent of spending and three percent of GDP.

The junta’s own fiscal policy statement for 2024–25, published by the Ministry of Planning and Finance, projected a deficit of 7.879 trillion kyats, equal to 5.07 percent of GDP. It admitted that financing would rely heavily on domestic borrowing and Central Bank credit—a euphemism for money printing.

But without an increase in production, the flood of new notes has only driven the kyat’s value down and worsened inflation. The World Bank estimates Myanmar’s annual inflation rate at 30–35 percent, with basic imports and essential goods rising more than 50 percent.

The Iran war has made matters even worse, driving up fuel prices more than 90 percent.

The shadow National Unity Government (NUG) estimated in 2024 that the regime had printed about 30 trillion kyats in the three years since the coup.