Myanmar

Our relationship with Myanmar

The New Zealand Government has made clear its condemnation of the February 2021 military coup in Myanmar, and remains deeply concerned about the ongoing violence against civilians, atrocities and human rights violations including sexual and gender-based violence, discrimination of religious and ethnic groups, and the restriction of fundamental freedoms in Myanmar. New Zealand has continued to call for the return to civilian government and the release of all those arbitrarily detained.

Following the coup, New Zealand has implemented measures aimed at pressuring the regime towards a return to civilian government. These include: 

- suspension of high-level political and defence engagement with the regime;
- travel bans on individuals associated with the coup and/or human rights abuses in Myanmar;
- ensuring New Zealand’s international development cooperation programme does not benefit the regime or entities/individuals linked to it; and
- that the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership will not enter into force between New Zealand and Myanmar.

Development cooperation and sustainability

Myanmar is a complex environment: large tracts of the country are conflict affected with high humanitarian and longer-term development needs.

In Myanmar we continue to provide development support to non-State actors and the people of Myanmar across three broad areas: agriculture and food security; peace and security, including mine education; and targeted knowledge and skills development activities.

Through the Manaaki New Zealand Scholarship Programme(external link) Myanmar scholars are eligible for Thematic Short Term Training Scholarships on selected ASEAN cohort courses. 

Learn more about New Zealand’s development cooperation with ASEAN(external link). 

The latest information on our development cooperation activities, including activity details and descriptions, start and end dates, geographic and sectoral focus, expenditure figures, is available at DevData.(external link)

Trade

New Zealand and Myanmar are both party to the ASEAN Australia New Zealand Free Trade Agreement(external link) (AANZFTA), which means tariffs are less than 15% for most products.

Information about New Zealand's trade with Myanmar is available on the New Zealand Trade Dashboard(external link).