Thus, Burma’s gas earnings of around $1.2 billion for 2006-07 are rendered into a mere 7.2 billion kyat in the country’s public accounts – less than 1% of the regime’s official public spending. Recorded at the market exchange rate, however, these earnings translate into 1.2 trillion kyat – an amount large enough to eliminate Burma’s budget deficit, as well as the destructively inflationary money printing that is the regime’s preferred method of public finance.