exports of major items such as garments and rice also softened amid increased competition driven by myanmar s liberalization and viet nam s engagement in free trade agreements reduction of tariff and nontariff barriers under the asean economic community should be used as an opportunity to accelerate economic diversification especially because the role of garment exports in driving the economy may not be as strong as in the past in august the government launched a new industrial development policy that is aimed at expanding the industrial base beyond garments and food processing to such areas as machinery and electrical equipment assembly and agroindustrial production to realize such a development it will be important to attract fdi into higher valueadded sectors and channel more credit to upgrade the industrial sector