The population of Myanmar is about 57 million and Buddhism is practiced by 89.3 percent of the population. Christianity is practised by 5.6 percent, Islam by 3.8 percent, Hinduism by 0.5 percent and Animism by 0.2 percent respectively. There are altogether 135 ethnic groups, also known as ”National Races”, and there are about 200 spoken languages. The main ethnic groups are Kachin, Kayin, Chin, Bamar (Myanmar), Mon, Rakhine and Shan. Among them, Myanmar (formerly known as Burmese) is the official language and spoken by about 70% of the population as their first language.
According to a 2010 survey, the Scriptures (Bible, New Testament, and Portions) have been translated in nearly 65 languages. Most of the orthographic systems were developed by the western missionaries. For some, the Bibles were translated by missionaries. As the churches are significantly growing today among the ethnic groups, there is a great demand for new Bible translations.
In response to the request of Christians among ethnic minority groups and pastors and Bible schools, the Bible Society of Myanmar has explored ways to meet the needs in publication of newly translated New Testaments, Bibles, Revisions and Study Bibles.
The Bible Society of Myanmar has 18 translation projects for 2011. Some projects have completed drafting their translation manuscripts and are waiting for reviewing, consultant checking and typesetting. The detailed background information follows:

Geba is one of the ethnic minority groups of the Sgaw Kayin tribe with a population 40,000 living in Kayin State, eastern part of Myanmar. Since 2002, SIL has helped language development with Geba.

The Geba New Testament translation project was started 2015 and to date 27 books has been translated, 17 books reviewed and 10 books checked by Nant Aye Aye Chit, the assigned Translation Officer. The estimated completion date is 2018. Geba New Testament Translation is different from others in using two separate scripts (Roman based and Kayin based) for the Scripture.

The Lacid people, minority groups of the Kachin tribe, living in the northern part of Myanmar is one of the ethnic with a population over 100,000. The Lacid New Testament project started in 1991 and published in 2005. They continued to translate the Old Testament and printed in 2010.

As they already have the Holy Bible, the Lacid translation committee started translating the New Testament Study Bible in 2010 and completed 2016. The Bible Society is waiting another years to start the translation of Old Testament Study Bible.

The Paoh people are one of the ethnic minority groups. They live in Shan State, eastern part of Myanmar with a population of more than 1,000,000. The Christian population among Paoh people is less than 1%. The first New Testament was published in 1961 during the time of missionaries. The Paoh Common Language New Testament translation project was started in 1987 and launched in 2009.

Upon the formal request of the Paoh Bible Translation Committee, Old Testament translation was started in 2010. All books had been translated and 30 books reviewed by the committee. Translation draft of 8 books had been checked by Dr Ji-Youn Cho, the assigned Translation Officer. The estimated completion date of the project is 2018.

The Zaiwa people are one of the ethnic minority groups of the Kachin tribe with a population of over 50,000, overlapping the border of Myanmar and China. Zaiwa New Testament was published and dedicated in 2009.

The Zaiwa Bible Translation Committee asked for Old Testament translation and the project was launched in 2012. To date, 15 books had been translated and Mr Ze Zawng, the assigned Translation Officer has already checked 6 books. The estimated completion is 2019.