Burma’s PM to visit Thailand this Week

Burma's Prime Minister Gen Thein Sein is expected in Thailand on Tuesday for a three-day official visit that will focus on reaching a contract-farming bilateral agreement.

It will be Thein Sein’s first visit to Thailand since he was appointed prime minister in October 2007.

Thein Sein’s schedule includes a stop on Tuesday at the Dusit Maha Prasart Throne Hall in Bangkok, where he will pay his respects to the late Princess Galyani Vadhana, the King’s late sister.

On Wednesday, Thai and Burmese government delegations will sign a memorandum of understanding on contract-farming cooperation intended to enable their two countries to tackle future food shortages.

Thein Sein’s Wednesday schedule will include an audience with the King of Thailand.

Apart from agricultural cooperation, Burmese and Thai delegations will discuss the problem of drug trafficking, the development of transportation routes between the two countries and controversial hydro-electric dam projects.

Thailand is Burma's biggest foreign investor and trading partner. Foreign investment in Burma totals more than US $14.7 billion in the 19 years since Burma opened to such investment in late 1988. With $6.3 billion pouring into Burma's electric power sector alone, Thailand's investment has accounted for $7.3 billion—or more than 53 percent of Burma's total foreign investment.

In the fiscal year 2006-2007, the value of bilateral trade was $2.6 billion—with Burmese exports to Thailand, mostly natural gas, amounting to $2.4 billion.

Latest official figures indicate that in the first half of the 2007-08 fiscal year, the value of bilateral trade reached $1.9 billion, with Burma’s exports to Thailand accounting for $1.69 billion, according to the Malaysian news agency Bernama.

Thein Sein ends his stay in Thailand on Thursday with a visit to the Doi Tung royal development project in Thailand’s northernmost province, Chiang Rai. Thailand and Burma have a joint project to grow alternative crops in the former opium plantations in the Yong Kha administrative area in Shan State.


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