5 Dollars Foreign Exchange Certificate

Myanmar's Foreign Exchange Certificates were introduced in 1993 as part of a government policy requiring tourists to exchange a minimum sum of hard currency upon entry — initially set at US$300. The FECs, as they became known, were non-convertible back into foreign currency and could not legally be taken out of the country, trapping visitors' money within a state-controlled spending system. Officially pegged at par with the US dollar, they traded at a significant discount on the parallel market almost immediately.

The scheme was deeply unpopular and widely criticized by human rights organizations as a mechanism funneling tourist dollars directly to the military government. It was abolished in 2003.