Myanmar has been blacklisted by the international money-laundering watchdog (Financial Action Task Force - FATF) on October 21.

After the FATF meeting, which was attended by representatives from more than 200 countries, including the World Bank and the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol), the Singaporean official who chaired the FATF announced the inclusion of Myanmar in the blacklist.

The Paris-based FATF group formed by the group of seven developed countries in 1989 to protect against money laundering, terrorist financing and similar threats to the integrity of the global financial system and the organization has added Myanmar to its blacklist, where only two countries were previously blacklisted, namely North Korea and Iran.

The blacklisting is expected to deal a blow to efforts to attract foreign investment after the military takeover in February 2021. Basically blacklisting will be more difficult for Myanmar banks and financial institutions along with international financial matters.

This year, the value of the Myanmar kyat has fallen by about 60 percent compared to the dollar, a series of record-breaking devaluations, and it is on the verge of falling again.

Foreign direct investment inflows reached their lowest level in 2021 since Myanmar opened its doors to foreign investment in 2011.

The current political crisis, foreign investors and worsening power outages, and policies that forced foreign currency to be exchanged for Myanmar kyats have scared away investments that are vital to the country's thriving economy. The World Bank predicts that Myanmar's GDP will stagnate this year after the economy shrank by nearly 20 percent in 2021.

Furthermore, the International Labor Organization (ILO) estimated that 1.6 million people lost their jobs in Myanmar last year.