President Thein Sein arrived Sunday for a four-day state visit to the city-state accompanied by a top-level delegation which included business leaders and top ministers in charge of economic portfolios.

Thein Sein met with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong Monday to witness the signing by their foreign ministers of an agreement under which Singapore will provide training for reforms in the legal, banking and financial sectors.

The pact also calls on Singapore to share its best practices in trade, tourism and urban planning.

With the West looking at easing sanctions and businesses closely watching sweeping democratic reforms in the formerly military-run country, Myanmar needs to prepare for an anticipated increase in investments and tourism, analysts said.

Weakened by half a century of military rule and economic mismanagement, Myanmar nevertheless has rich natural resources, including gold, gas, teak, oil, jade and gems and a large pool of low-cost labour.

The Southeast Asian state also boasts of a host of tourism attractions with its appealing colonial architecture, picturesque temples and golden beaches.

“If all goes well, Burma certainly looks forward to being welcomed from the political wilderness,” said Song Seng Wun a regional economist with Malaysian bank CIMB, using Myanmar’s former name.

“It looks like the Burmese are in a hurry to catch up in the shortest possible time,” he told AFP.

Myanmar will likely tap Singapore’s expertise in financial services, Song said.

“After so many years of isolation, their capacity to handle the expected inflow of investments and set up the much-needed regulatory frameworks have to be brought up to scratch as quickly as possible.”

A Southeast Asian diplomat also told AFP that Myanmar needs to train accountants, bankers and other people with technical skills as well as in corporate governance.

“Singapore is the logical place where it can seek help,” said the diplomat, who asked not to be named.

Singapore, a regional financial centre and a favourite hub for global companies, is often seen as a model by its neighbours.

After nearly five decades of outright army rule in Myanmar, a nominally civilian government took power last year and has since surprised outside observers with its apparent scope and pace of reforms.

Thein Sein, a former prime minister and an ex-general who was a member of the junta, was appointed president in February last year after the November 2010 elections.

Myanmar and Singapore are members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which also includes Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

Under military rule, Myanmar had long been a thorn on the side of ASEAN, hobbling the bloc’s relations with Western powers because of the jailing of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and allegations of widespread human rights abuses.

Aekapol Chongvilaivan, an analyst with the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, said regional economies must help Myanmar push ahead with democratic reforms.

“Singapore really needs to push Myanmar because Myanmar needs to play a more important role in ASEAN… The financial area is one major avenue that Singapore can contribute to,” Aekapol told AFP.

“I think now Myanmar has already set the stage for economic and political transformation.”

An orchid will be named after Thein Sein’s wife, Khin Khin Win. Thein Sein already has an orchid name after him when he visited Singapore in 2009 as prime minister.

© 1994-2012 Agence France-Presse

“We are not acquiring nuclear weapons from North Korea,” the Straits Times newspaper on Tuesday quoted him as saying in an interview during a four-day state visit to Singapore.

“These allegations are unfounded and based on suspicion by some Western countries.”

A 2010 United Nations report accused Pyongyang of supplying banned nuclear and ballistic equipment to Myanmar, Iran and Syria.

In a landmark visit to Myanmar in December, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on the country to sever “illicit ties” with Pyongyang to foster better relations with Washington.

Clinton said that Thein Sein had given “strong assurances” that Myanmar would abide by United Nations resolutions under which weapons exports from North Korea are banned.

The leader’s latest reassurance comes on top of a similar statement in June 2010, when the then-ruling military junta said it had no intention of a tie-up with Pyongyang to build an atomic bomb.

The US also said in November last year it had not detected any signs of a major nuclear programme in Myanmar and downplayed defector accounts that the country was developing an advanced atomic weapons system with North Korea.

Myanmar has maintained that it is too poor to acquire nuclear weapons and that it has always abided by UN resolutions, even halting a Russia-backed peaceful nuclear research programme because of international concerns.

The Southeast Asian country is undergoing a raft of dramatic political reforms that have surprised critics after ending almost half a century of military rule about nine months ago.

Peace talks and with ethnic rebel groups, pardons of prominent dissidents and the release of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest have been warmly welcomed by an initially-sceptical international community.

Thein Sein’s government has also received plaudits for allowing Suu Kyi to stand for a parliamentary seat, with the Nobel Peace Prize winner greeted by huge rapturous crowds wherever she campaigns.

Thein Sein — an ex-general who became president at the head of a nominally civilian government last year — promised during his visit to Singapore to establish a “healthy democracy” in Myanmar.

“We have turned a new page in our country in order to create better conditions in Myanmar,” he said at a state banquet held by Singapore leaders Monday.

“We want to give a brighter future for our people.”

“We want our people to take part in the democratic reform process and we want democracy to thrive in Myanmar. I wish to assure you that I shall endeavour to establish a healthy democracy in Myanmar.”

© 1994-2012 Agence France-Presse

Thein Sein arrived Sunday for a four-day state visit accompanied by a top-level delegation which included business leaders and top ministers in charge of economic portfolios.

On Monday Thein Sein met with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding under which Singapore will provide training for reforms in the legal, banking and financial sectors.

The pact also calls on Singapore to share its best practices in trade, tourism and urban planning.

With the West looking at easing sanctions and businesses closely watching sweeping democratic reforms in the formerly military-run country, the resource-rich Southeast Asian state needs to prepare for an anticipated increase in investments and tourism, analysts said.

“If all goes well, Burma certainly looks forward to being welcomed from the political wilderness,” said Song Seng Wun a regional economist with Malaysian bank CIMB, using Myanmar’s former name.

“It looks like the Burmese are in a hurry to catch up in the shortest possible time,” he told AFP.

Myanmar will likely tap Singapore’s expertise in financial services, Song said.

“After so many years of isolation, their capacity to handle the expected inflow of investments and set up the much-needed regulatory frameworks have to be brought up to scratch as quickly as possible.”

A Southeast Asian diplomat also told AFP that Myanmar needs to train accountants, bankers and other people with technical skills as well as in corporate governance.

“Singapore is the logical place where it can seek help,” said the diplomat, who asked not to be named.

Singapore, a regional financial centre and a favourite hub for global companies, is often seen as a model by its neighbours.

After nearly five decades of outright army rule in Myanmar, a nominally civilian government took power last year and has since surprised outside observers with its apparent scope and pace of reforms.

Thein Sein, a former prime minister and an ex-general who was a member of the junta, was appointed president in February last year after the November 2010 elections.

© 1994-2012 Agence France-Presse

Strict sanctions on Myanmar, enforced notably by the United States and the European Union in response to human rights abuses and for failing to free all political prisoners, have long left the country isolated.

Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong, whose country has just taken over the rotating chairmanship of the 10-nation regional bloc, said democratic reform in Myanmar was moving forward.

Hor Namhong

“Myanmar’s foreign minister has requested ASEAN to call for the lifting of economic sanctions against Myanmar,” he told reporters after the bloc’s foreign ministers held a two-day retreat in the northwestern temple town of Siem Reap.

“And I would like to inform you that ASEAN as a whole agrees on the issue,” he added.

The Singapore foreign ministry said “the ministers noted the positive developments in Myanmar and expressed their support for the lifting of sanctions”.

ASEAN made a similar call for sanctions to be removed a year ago at a retreat in Indonesia.

Since then Myanmar’s new nominally-civilian government has surprised observers by opening dialogue with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, freezing work on an unpopular mega-dam and releasing some dissidents.

Myanmar was rewarded in November for its conciliatory gestures with the ASEAN chair in 2014, despite rights groups saying the move was premature.

The country gave up the chance to head ASEAN five years ago due to international pressure for democratic reforms.

ASEAN also includes Brunei, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

As chair of ASEAN, Myanmar would be required to speak on behalf of the bloc and host scores of meetings including the East Asia Summit, which includes the United States.

© 1994-2012 Agence France-Presse

“When I saw the airplane I got a shock, when I saw the airport I got a shock, when I saw the big building and big bridge and good road I got a shock,” he told a packed audience that turned out to hear him in Bangkok.

But it is the faces of young people in neighbouring Thailand — expressing “freedom” and “self-confidence” — that have really stunned the 50-year-old Zarganar.

Zarganar

“Our young people in my country, daily they worry… Their faces are full of anxieties,” he told the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand late Monday. “We are neighbouring countries, but quite different.”

During his first short stint abroad, however, the bald and bespectacled dissident is not dwelling on anxiety.

Renowned for his humour in the face of repression and held in jail four times by Myanmar’s ruling generals, the poet, performer and filmmaker was released from his latest prison term in October and has since finally been granted a passport.

“Now I’m here, this is improvement,” said Zarganar, who on Tuesday was headed to Cambodia before he returns home.

His release, part of a wider prisoner amnesty, was one of several promising moves made by the new nominally civilian government this year that surprised skeptical Myanmar observers after almost 50 years of outright army rule.

Although elections last November were widely criticised by the West, the new administration’s nascent reforms have been cautiously welcomed and spurred a landmark visit by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in recent weeks.

“This is watch-and-see time, so we just open the window to watch the government, what they do, what they will do,” Zarganar said.

As the country tries to shake off its isolated status, he said lifting sanctions imposed by the West would lead to more aid from foreign countries “for our people, not for our military”.

For Zarganar and his fellow citizens of Myanmar, formerly called Burma, progress has been a long time coming.

Born Maung Thura, a year before the army grabbed power in 1962, he worked with several performance groups while studying at dental school and later adopted the name Zarganar, meaning “tweezers”.

He joined the 1988 student-led uprising against the then military dictator Ne Win and was arrested that year, tortured and sent to Yangon’s Insein Prison, where he was held for several months before being released in 1989.

Since then, he has been arrested three more times for his dissident activities “so I’m very familiar with the prisons, I’m very used to the iron bars,” he said.

He talked about “a very rude and terrible time” during his earlier years of detention, which included five years in solitary confinement without windows, fresh air or even toilet paper — using leaves instead.

Conditions were less horrific during his latest jail term, stemming from his rush to help victims of the devastating Cyclone Nargis that tore through the Irrawaddy Delta in May 2008, leaving 138,000 people dead or missing.

As the regime drew global condemnation for refusing aid groups access for weeks, the comedian was among the first bands of local people to get provisions to some of the 2.4 million desperately struggling for survival.

He was sentenced to 59 years’ imprisonment after organising aid-related activities, later reduced to 35 years, and in late 2008 was moved to Myitkyina prison in the remote far north of the country.

It was here Zarganar said he came across a jailed colonel who, back in 1988, had tortured him with kickings, beatings and electric shocks.

“He cried but I smiled. I gave him my hand to shake. Every day I talked a lot to him, I can forgive him.”

Zarganar said he was saddened that his enemy-turned-prison mate remains locked up, alongside hundreds of political prisoners.

“We have to support them morally and financially. It’s very important,” he said.

For all his activism, Zarganar has no intention of running for political office in upcoming by-elections — unlike democracy icon and fellow former prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi, whom he affectionately refers to as “Auntie”.

His plans on returning to Myanmar include an Art of Freedom film festival and a short film, “Hello Democracy”, about his “shock” on meeting the outside world. For him, the key is getting young people into education and politics.

“I love my country and I love my people. To save my people — that’s my own principle, just like that,” he said.

© 1994-2011 Agence France-Presse

The announcement in state media follows a series of reformist moves by a new military-backed government dominated by former generals, who are now reaching out to political opponents and the West.

Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) was stripped of its status as a legal political party by the junta last year after it chose to boycott a rare election, saying the rules were unfair.

A brief announcement in the official New Light of Myanmar newspaper on Tuesday said that the country’s election commission had approved the NLD’s application to re-register as a political party.

The country formerly known as Burma has surprised even its critics over the past year — releasing democracy champion Suu Kyi from years of house arrest, holding dialogue with the opposition and freeing some political prisoners.

In one of a number of dramatic developments, Suu Kyi has said she will take part in by-elections expected early next year, although no date has been set.

She voiced guarded hope earlier this month that democracy would come to Myanmar, as she welcomed Hillary Clinton to the home that was her prison for years during a landmark visit by the US Secretary of State.

“I am very confident that if we work together… there will be no turning back from the road to democracy,” Suu Kyi said at the time.

On Monday her party said it had chosen the image of a fighting peacock gazing at a white star as its new symbol, replacing its trademark bamboo hat, which was used by a breakaway group that participated in the 2010 election.

Suu Kyi’s party won a 1990 poll but was never allowed by the generals to take power.

It refused to participate in the November 2010 vote — the first in two decades — mainly because of rules that would have forced it to expel imprisoned members.

Suu Kyi, who has spent most of the past two decades in detention, was under house arrest at the time and was released just days after the polls.

An amendment to a law on political parties has since removed the contentious clause that said prisoners could not be party members, as well as a condition that all parties must agree to “preserve” a controversial 2008 constitution.

An NLD spokesman said Suu Kyi was likely to travel to the capital Naypyidaw herself to complete the party registration process.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa hailed the authorities’ announcement as “another important development” in the reform process.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, now chaired by Indonesia, announced during its Bali summit last month that it had allowed Myanmar to chair the bloc in 2014 as a reward for reforms it has made over the past year.

As part of its budding reforms, the regime has also reached out to ethnic guerrillas, following decades of civil war in parts of the country.

On Monday the office of President Thein Sein said the former junta general had ordered the military to cease attacks against ethnic Kachin rebels in the north of the country where fighting has raged since June.

Authorities recently held peace talks with Myanmar’s main armed ethnic groups, including the Kachin rebels, and this month signed a preliminary ceasefire agreement with one major militia, the Shan State Army South.

In a rare response to public opposition, the president in September suspended construction of a controversial mega-dam in Kachin state.

© 1994-2011 Agence France-Presse

Derek Mitchell, the US special envoy on Myanmar, will visit Beijing on 12 to 13 December after holding meetings this week in Japan and South Korea, the official said on condition of anonymity.

Clinton last week became the top US official in more than 50 years to visit Myanmar, also known as Burma, as she sought to encourage reforms by the government which has opened talks with the opposition and ethnic minorities.

Clinton insisted that her visit was not intended to challenge China and that the United States sought cooperation. But the trip came amid uneasy relations between the Pacific powers as the United States seeks to boost its presence in Asia.

Myanmar’s military-backed leadership has counted on China as its main supporter but many people in Myanmar resent Beijing’s outsized influence. President Thein Sein surprised even critics when he recently halted work on an unpopular dam that would primarily benefit China.

China reacted to Clinton’s visit by urging the United States to lift its sweeping sanctions on Myanmar, a step that Washington says is premature without further reforms.

Opposition icon Aung San Suu Kyi has tried to ease China’s concerns, saying while appearing next to Clinton in Yangon that she hoped Myanmar would have “friendly relations” with its giant neighbor.

Mitchell will hold talks in South Korea on Thursday and head to Japan the following day, the US official said. The two countries have maintained economic ties with Myanmar in a rare policy divergence with the United States.

Japan, which ruled Burma during World War II, was historically the top aid provider to Myanmar. Under US pressure, Japan cut most assistance in 2003 after Suu Kyi was arrested but it has recently opened talks to resume aid.

© 1994-2011 Agence France-Presse

The bill, signed by the President Thein Sein on Friday, requires that demonstrators inform the authorities five days in advance of when, where and why they wish to protest, according to the official Myanmar Ahlin newspaper.

The law was passed last month by a parliament dominated by Thein Sein’s party and its military allies, making his final approval a mere formality.

It requires would-be protesters to tell the authorities in advance what they will talk or chant about at their gathering, as well as the route they plan to take.

It is forbidden to block traffic or cause disturbances during rallies.

Anybody who protests without permission risks one year in jail, while disturbing a peaceful gathering carries a penalty of two years’ imprisonment.

Protests are rare in the authoritarian country formerly known as Burma, where pro-democracy rallies in 1988 and 2007 were brutally crushed by the junta.

Myanmar’s new parliament opened in January after nearly five decades of outright military rule following an election in November — the first in 20 years — that was dismissed by many observers as a sham.

The new leaders of the country, which is subject to Western sanctions, have surprised observers with a number of reformist steps in an apparent move to end international isolation, and welcomed US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on a landmark three-day visit which wrapped up on Friday.

On the same day, Myanmar authorities reached a ceasefire deal with one of the war-torn country’s major ethnic guerrilla groups, the Shan State Army South, a mediator involved in the talks said.

© 1994-2011 Agence France-Presse

The high-stakes personal intervention in a country long regarded by the West as a pariah state came during a historic visit by Hillary Clinton, the first US secretary of state to set foot in the isolated nation for 50 years.

After talks with President Thein Sein in the capital Naypyidaw, Clinton met Nobel peace laureate Suu Kyi at the US diplomatic mission in Yangon where the pair posed for photographs before holding a private dinner.

In a message to Thein Sein, Obama offered a “new phase” in ties and requested “tangible outcomes” from a political reform effort which Washington is testing before deciding its next step.

Obama also thanked Suu Kyi for her “inspiration” to people around the world in a separate letter delivered by Clinton to Suu Kyi.

The country formerly known as Burma has surprised observers with a series of reformist moves in the past year including releasing Suu Kyi from house arrest, holding dialogue with the opposition and freeing some political prisoners.

Obama told Thein Sein, a former general, that Washington wanted to “explore how the United States can support and advance your efforts to transition to democracy and promote protection of human rights”.

US officials said the message aimed to signal that Obama was ready to invest personal prestige in engaging Myanmar.

In her landmark talks, Clinton won promises of further reforms from Thein Sein and offered cautious incentives to encourage new action, saying more needed to be done before US sanctions could be lifted.

“Any steps that the government takes will be carefully considered and… will be matched because we want to see political and economic reform take hold,” she told reporters in Naypyidaw.

Thein Sein, who took charge in March after Myanmar nominally ended decades of military rule, himself hailed a “new chapter in relations” as he met Clinton at his imposing palace decked out with chandeliers and gold-leaf chairs.

Clinton said the United States would open talks with Myanmar to start joint searches for the remains of troops killed in World War II, when the strategically placed country was a major battleground.

She also invited Myanmar to join as an observer the Lower Mekong Initiative, a US programme that offers cooperation on health and the environment in Southeast Asian nations, and voiced support for IMF missions to the country.

“These are incremental steps and we are prepared to go further if reforms maintain momentum. In that spirit, we are discussing what it will take to upgrade diplomatic relations and exchange ambassadors,” Clinton told reporters.

The United States has been represented by a lower-ranking diplomat, a charge d’affaires, as a protest since Myanmar’s military rulers refused to accept the results of 1990 elections swept by Suu Kyi’s party.

Suu Kyi holds huge influence in Washington — where Myanmar exile groups keep up a vocal lobbying campaign against the military-backed government — and any easing of US sanctions on Myanmar would almost certainly need her approval.

In an indication of the high esteem in which Suu Kyi is held in Washington, Clinton is scheduled to meet the democracy champion twice — first at Thursday’s dinner and then for more formal talks on Friday morning.

In his letter to Suu Kyi, Obama said that he had long admired the opposition leader’s “brave and unwavering struggle for democracy”.

He wrote: “Thank you for the inspiration you provide all of us around the world who share the values of democracy, human rights and justice. We stand by you now and always.”

Suu Kyi’s opposition, which boycotted elections last year that ushered in the reform moves, plans to contest by-elections next year that will be a major test of the new political climate.

Obama announced he would send Clinton to test the changes in Myanmar two weeks ago, during an Asia-Pacific tour, in the most significant US gesture towards the country in many years.

Clinton has urged Myanmar to free all political prisoners, estimated by activists to number between 500 and more than 1,600, and pressed the government to end long-running ethnic conflicts.

© 1994-2011 Agence France-Presse

Myanmar Times reported, Monday, Amara Group opened its second property, Amara Ocean Resort on Ngapali Beach about 4 km north of Thandwe Airport .

The resort’s general manager, Dominik Dell, says the resort has strong advance bookings up to the close of the peak season in March 2012.

“At Ngapali, most of the resorts are fully-booked in November and December. As our resort has just opened, we don’t expect high occupancy for the first season,” Mr Dell said.

The resort has 28 bungalows but plans to add more units later.

It provides Wi-Fi internet but no in-room TV.

Amara Group’s first property was the Amara Mountain Resort in Kalaw, Shan State that opened in 2003. It also operates cruises on the Ayeyarwady River with two boats, Amara 1 and Amara 2.

Another property in Ngapali due to open this December is Ngapali Bay Villas and Spa run by Tharabar Gate Hotel Group. The resort is located about 10 km south of the airport and will have 32 villas.

The group will also open Villa Inle Resort and Spa near the eastern side of Inle Lake with 16 villas and due to open later this month.