Bago Region - Economy

Economy

The division's economy is strongly dependent on the timber trade. Taungoo, in the northern end of the Bago Region, is bordered by mountain ranges, home to teak and other hardwoods. Other natural resources include petroleum. The major crop is rice, which occupies over two-thirds of the available agricultural land. Other major crops include betel nut, sugarcane, maize, groundnut, sesamum, sunflower, beans and pulses, cotton, jute, rubber, tobacco, tapioca, banana, Nipa palm and toddy. Industry includes fisheries, salt, ceramics, sugar, paper, plywood, distilleries, and monosodium glutamate.

The division also has a small livestock breeding and fisheries sector, and a small industrial sector. In 2005, the division had over 4 million farm animals and nearly 3,000 acres (12 km2) of fish and prawn farms; about 3000 private factories and about 100 state owned factories.

The major tourist sites of Bago Region can be reached as a day trip from Yangon.

The Shwegyin Hydropower Plant was in the eastern part Bago Region. It was a 1,568 ft long, 135 ft wide and 2.5 ft thick zone type dam with a water storage capacity of 1,685,000 acre feet. The three concrete conduit pipes of it were 1,765 ft in length, 16 ft in width and 20 ft in height each. The intake infrastructure was 121 ft long, 127 ft wide and 137 ft high and the spillway was 2,542 ft long, 135 ft wide and 58 ft high. Two compressed steel pipe lines equipped at the dam were 25 ft in diameter and 1,100 ft in length each. The power plant is 295 ft long, 94 ft wide and 70 ft high. The plant was equipped with four 18.75-MW Francis-Vertical Shaft turbines and it could generate 262 million KW hours per year. The construction of the dam was launched in 2003, and the first power station was opened on 29 December 2009, the second power station on 25 March 2011, the third power station on 2 June 2011 and the fourth power station on 21 July 2011. It was inaugurated on 22 October 2011.