Yangon - The dramatic appreciation of the Myanmar kyat against the dollar over the past three months has cut into the earnings of Burmese working abroad, the Myanmar Times reported Tuesday.

"The kyat has recently risen in value for reasons not entirely clear, even against the US dollar, which now costs about 1,000 kyat," the English-language weekly reported.

For most of last year, the black market rate for the kyat was 1,200 to 1,300 to the dollar.

Other Asian currencies have been depreciating against the dollar since January this year, meaning that the amount of kyat earned of remittance sent home by Myanmar nationals working in South-East in on the decline.

"These days, we can't transfer as much cash as before to our families," said Ko Myat Ko Ko, 37, a civil engineer working in construction in Singapore.

In January, one Singaporean dollar was worth 840 kyat, but now it fetches only 640 kyat.

Singapore is the most popular destination for Myanmar overseas workers, who are mostly employed as engineers, IT experts, accountants, nurses and factory workers in the city-state.

These Myanmar workers now face the double whammy of growing job insecurity as Singapore's economy dips in to recession and diminishing kyat returns on their Singapore dollars, noted the Myanmar Times.

"The recession has become a really big issue for Myanmar workers because the bosses are giving first priority to their own citizens and permanent residents when taking on staff," Ko Zaw Win, an IT expert in Singapore, told the Myanmar Times.

There has been no official explanation for why the Myanmar kyat, normally one of the weakest currencies in South-East Asia, has been mysteriously appreciating in recent months. (dpa)