Myanmar overtakes Afghanistan as world’s top opium producer
MYANMAR has surpassed Afghanistan to become the world’s largest producer of opium, after the Taliban outlawed poppy cultivation and the production of drugs, according to a United Nations report.
Opium production in the South-east nation, wrecked by an increasingly bitter civil war, shot up by 36 per cent to 1,080 metric tonnes this year, the highest since 2001, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said in a report on Tuesday (Dec 12).
Poppy cultivation in Myanmar declined between 2014 and 2020 but has increased by 33 per cent since the military overthrew the democratically elected government in February 2021. “Worsening stability and security since then have coincided with greater levels of poppy cultivation and opium production,” the report says.
About 47,000 hectares of land are currently under poppy production, up 18 per cent from last year, the report adds.
Afghanistan, which had historically been the world leader in opium production, has seen a 95 per cent drop in output since the country’s Taliban rulers imposed a strict ban last year, the report says.
The significant reduction in opium production could boost the Taliban’s attempts to gain international recognition for their regime after they ousted a US-backed government and retook power in August 2021. The militants had relied, in part, on opium production to fund a two-decade insurgency against the US and Nato forces.
According to the report, the production and trafficking of heroin was the most profitable activity of Myanmar’s opium industry. The value of the country’s opium economy, including exports and internal consumption, is estimated at US$1 billion to US$2.5 billion, or roughly 2 per cent to 4 per cent of GDP in 2022. BLOOMBERG
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