Myanmar

Myanmar's Military Spending Reaches 6.6% of GDP Under SIPRI's 2024 Figures

Myanmar, classified here within the Asia region, combines a high military-spending-to-GDP ratio with low governance scores across all three V-Dem measures tracked, according to the figures compiled below.

Economy and Fiscal Position Myanmar's economy was valued at $74.1 billion in 2024, per World Bank WDI figures, with GDP per capita of $1,359 and a population of 54.5 million. The IMF's 2026 World Economic Outlook puts government debt at 51.9 percent of GDP. Foreign exchange reserves were $9.3 billion as of 2023, per World Bank WDI — a figure now more than two years old and not necessarily representative of the current position.

Defense Spending and Capability SIPRI's 2024 figures put Myanmar's military expenditure at $5.0 billion, or 6.605 percent of GDP under SIPRI's own GDP series. That ratio should not be recomputed against the World Bank GDP figure above, which uses a different denominator. Active personnel numbered 356,000 as of 2022, per COW NMC — against the 54.5 million population recorded above for 2024 — and the same source assigns a CINC score of 0.0053131571 for that year, a composite measure combining demographic, industrial and military inputs rather than spending alone. This dataset includes no nuclear-warhead figure for Myanmar.

Governance V-Dem's 2025 figures score Myanmar's electoral democracy index at 0.08 and liberal democracy index at 0.015, both near the bottom of the 0-1 scale used by that source. State capacity is scored at 0.062, also near the bottom of that scale. These figures are reported here as given, without further interpretation.

Energy Primary energy consumption was 0.4788 exajoules in 2023, per Our World in Data, and electricity generation was 21.71 TWh in 2024. Gas production was 147.686 TWh in 2024, a volume that dwarfs domestic electricity generation in this dataset, while the oil production figure of 9.788 TWh is dated to 2016 and should not be read as current.

Sources: World Bank WDI, IMF WEO, SIPRI Milex, COW NMC, V-Dem v15, Our World in Data (Energy)