The Myanmar government highly appreciates the active role played by the China-ASEAN Expo in promoting regional economic cooperation and bilateral exchanges, and the China-ASEAN cooperation will benefit 1.88 billion people directly, Myanmar's Prime Minister Soe Win told reporters on Thursday, when attending the 2nd China-ASEAN Expo in Nanning, capital city of southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

This is the second year that Prime Minister Soe Win leads a delegation to participate in this grand annual event, who also attended the opening ceremony of the 2nd China-ASEAN Business & Investment Summit a day earlier.

Mr. Soe Win spoke highly of Guangxi's efforts in city construction and organization of the CAEXPO. He said that Myanmar began pushing forward state opening up and reform in 1988, and construction on all sides is going on. He hopes enterprises from various countries could go to explore his nation for business opportunities, bring advanced technologies to the country and seek mutual benefits from Myanmar's construction and development.

Being close neighbors, Myanmar and China still see their bilateral trade focusing on the border, Mr. Soe Win noted. Last year the bilateral trade volume stood at 780 million US dollars, which is expected to reach 1.05 billion dollars this year. There exists large potential for border trade considering its relatively small scale at present.

The Myanmar government encourages the development of private business at home, said the Prime Minister. A country of rich natural resources, Myanmar hopes to lure competitive enterprises from all countries to participate in multilateral economic cooperation.

Prime Minister Soe Win extends warm welcome to Chinese entrepreneurs to seek business opportunities in Myanmar, who, like business people from other countries, will benefit substantially from preferential policies offered by Myanmar.

Prime Minister Soe Win left for home in the afternoon.

By People's Daily Online