Abstract

• The garment and apparel industry is one of the prioritized sectors in Myanmar and increasing its productivity is vital to Myanmar’s economy. In order to ensure the growth of labour productivity and promote its export to the global apparel market, this study explores the causal relationship between labour productivity and exports of Myanmar garment firms. The major purpose of this study is to analyze the direction of causation between labour productivity and export of garment manufacturing firms, and to examine whether the relationship between labour productivity and export are long-run or short-run. The analysis is based on the Granger Causality Test by using the time-series data for 64 consecutive months during the period from January-2017 to April-2022. The results of causality test indicates that the relationship between labour productivity and export is concerned only short-run with the unidirectional causal relationship form labour productivity to export of garment firms which is occurred by three months lags. Therefore, based on this result, it can be concluded that an increase in labour productivity about three months ago can enhance current period’s exports for Myanmar’s garment industry.