Myanmar signs economic pact with ally China
Myanmar signs economic pact with ally China
RANGOON (Reuter): Myanmar has signed a broad economic and trade cooperation agreement with its major ally China, official media reports said yesterday, a move that comes soon after U.S. sanctions on Rangoon.
The reports said China's visiting vice minister for foreign trade and economic cooperation, Li Guo Hua, and Myanmar's national planning and economic development minister, David Abel, also agreed on Thursday to form a joint works committee for cooperation.
No further details were provided.
"The significance of this agreement is it was signed soon after the U.S. decided to impose economic sanctions on Myanmar," an analyst said.
"It can mean that the Chinese want to show the ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) that they are dependable in times of isolation," he said.
The United States in April announced a ban on all new U.S. investments in Myanmar because of alleged human rights abuses by the country's military rulers and repression of the democracy movement led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
China is one of Myanmar's closest allies and is said to be its biggest supplier of weapons.
Bilateral trade between the two countries totaled $500 million in 1995, Chinese embassy sources said.
The Myanmar-China pact also comes ahead of a widely watched meeting of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) foreign ministers in Malaysia on Saturday to decide when Myanmar will be permitted to join the regional grouping.
ASEAN -- Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam -- has already decided to admit Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos as a group this year.
Malaysia, this year's ASEAN chairman, has pressed for the three to be inducted at the group's annual ministerial meeting scheduled for July 24-25. Another proposal would admit them at an informal ASEAN summit in December.
The United States has asked ASEAN to delay Myanmar's entry because of human rights concerns.