Sweater knitting, flower and vegetable gardens, strawberry and pineapple orchards, coffee plantations and cow rearing are the main local businesses. There has been an influx of Chinese immigrants (especially from Yunnan) in recent years. The city is a resort town for visitors from Myanmar's major cities during the summertime and a popular stop for foreign tourists during the winter season.
Kandawgyi National Garden at Pyin Oo Lwin
Established in 1915, the National Botanical Gardens and the adjacent Pyin Oo Lwin Nursery are attractions of Pyin Oo Lwin. A 4-acre (16,000 m2) orchid garden is planned for 2007.
Today, Pyin Oo Lwin is noted as four centers of national economic importance. It is the centre of sericulture (silkworm rearing). The Sericulture Research Centre, near the National Kandawgyi Botanical Gardens, has three distinct roles: the intensive planting and harvesting of mulberry trees (leaves for the silkworms, bark for handmade paper), the rearing of silkworms, and the reeling of the silk from the cocoons. It has a large research centre for indigenous medicinal plants. It has one of the country's few pharmaceutical production facilities.
Pyin Oo Lwin is the center of the country's flower and vegetable production. The most important flowers grown intensively are chrysanthemum, aster and gladiolus, which are exported to every corner of Myanmar throughout the year. Lastly, Pyin Oo Lwin is the center of Myanmar's rapidly growing coffee industry. Several factories in the town process coffee beans for country-wide distribution and export.