Myanmar top leader meets Thai FM

Chairman of the Myanmar State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) Senior-General Than Shwe met with visiting Thai Foreign Minister Kantathi Suphamongkhon Thursday morning, according to official sources.

It was the first public appearance of Than Shwe since he last met Ali Alatas, Special Envoy of the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, on Aug. 19.

Present at the meeting were all key government leaders including SPDC Vice-Chairman Vice Senior-General Maung Aye, SPDC member General Shwe Mann, Prime Minister General Soe Win and SPDC First Secretary Lieutenant-General Thein Sein.

Myanmar leaders' group presence also came days after the government refuted rumors last weekend about changes in top government leadership which spread internally and externally earlier.

So far, no details about their meeting have been disclosed by both sides.

Aimed at promoting bilateral relations between Myanmar and Thailand as well as the regional cooperation, Kantathi arrived on Wednesday for a two-day official visit. The visit is one of his introductory trips to member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) after he assumed office in March.

More than a month ago, Thai Deputy Prime Minister Surakiart Sathirthai visited Yangon in late July as special envoy of Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

In June, the two countries inked a MoU on developing some hydropower projects on Myanmar's Thanlwin and Tanintharyi rivers, and in July, the PTTEP International Ltd of Thailand and Myanmar signed a production sharing contract on oil and gas exploration in block M-11 in Myanmar's Mottama offshore area.

According to Thai official statistics, of the 1.96 billion US dollars' Myanmar-Thai bilateral trade in 2004, Thailand's imports from Myanmar amounted to 1.34 billion US dollars, up 40 percent from 2003, while its exports to Myanmar reached 624 million US dollars, also up 33 percent.

Of the bilateral trade in 2004, the border trade accounted for 1.7 billion US dollars.

Thailand, which is Myanmar's biggest trading partner, represented 38 percent of the country's total foreign trade volume of 4.9 billion US dollars in 2004-05 which ended in March.

Source: Xinhua