Girl worker watering crop on a jasmine farm. Jasmine production is a highly lucrative floriculture practiced by many farmers in the lower Burma area for sale in the markets of Rangoon. Flowers are a cash crop due to their exclusive use as adornments in Buddhist temples. - - General: General. With a population of just over 30 million and an area of 678 000 sq. km, Burma is bordered by Thailand, Laos, China (Tibet), India, Bangladesh and the Bay of Bengal. Apart from the large towns of Rangoon (capital) and Mandalay, the rest of the country consists of villages and townships. The economy is largely agricultural with rice as the leading crop. Traditional production also includes rubber, groundnuts, pulses, cotton, sugar cane and timber. Improvements to the economy since nationalization (1963) have been slow, partly due to inexperience in industrialization and marketing, but mainly because of the virtual collapse of the international rice market in the mid 1960s. Assistance in rebuilding the economy has come from several international bodies including FAO, and the government is placing increasing importance on the training of young personnel in agricultural technology and management.