The foreign exchange market saw the dollar drops to Ks 4,340 on August 21, marking a decline of 125 kyats within 21 days.
The dollar has been steadily falling throughout the third week of August, following a rate of Ks 4,465 per dollar on August 1.
In the domestic market, the exchange rate recorded 4,415 kyats on August 2, 4,400 kyats on August 5, 4,405 kyats on August 6, and 4,395 kyats on August 7. Although it rebounded slightly to 4,425 kyats on August 19, it slipped back to 4,400 kyats on August 20 before dropping sharply to 4,340 kyats on August 21.
Gold prices also mirrored this downward trend. In the external gold market, the price of pure gold fell to around 7.2 million kyats on the afternoon of August 21. Traders noted that the price had been sliding for the past few days. Compared to the previous day’s prices, the external market price dropped by more than 200,000 kyats per gold kyat.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation’s Gold Reference Price Committee fixed the standard gold price (16.329 grams, density 19.25 g/cm³ and above) at 5,890,000 kyats on August 21, 2025.
For comparison, the domestic Academy gold price stood at 5,372,415 kyats per kyat on December 5, 2024, when the global gold price was $2,643 per ounce. Records show steady increases in Myanmar’s gold prices over the years. The standard price was Ks 903,500 in October 2016, Ks 957,800 in September 2017, Ks 1,047,700 in September 2018, Ks 1,237,000 in August 2019, and reached Ks 1,420,000 on February 6, 2021, the highest on record at that time.
