"Our garment exports are still going down because of the US sanctions. There's been no recovery yet, even though we have tried to turn things around," an official of the Myanmar Garment Manufacturers Association told AFP.

"The situation is dire. We've made no improvement at all," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to the media.

Myanmar exported 280 million dollars worth of garments in 2006, down more than 12 percent from the previous year's exports of 320 million dollars, he said.

Garment exports reached a high of 850 million dollars in 2001 but exports plunged after the United States toughened sanctions against the military government in 2003, in protest at the junta's detention of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The Nobel peace laureate was arrested after a pro-government mob ambushed her convoy in May 2003, in an attack that her National League for Democracy party says left nearly 100 dead.

The military then put her under house arrest for the third time. She has spent a total of nearly 12 years in detention since her first arrest in 1989.

Sanctions were first imposed in the mid-1990s, when Aung San Suu Kyi urged the world to put pressure on the junta to respect results of 1990 elections won by her party.

The United States now has a total ban on Myanmar exports, while the European Union maintains targeted measures including a travel ban on the junta, an arms embargo, and a ban on investment in state companies.