Japanese Prime Minister visits Myanmar after nearly 40 years
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe arrived in Yangon on May 24, beginning a three-day official goodwill visit to Myanmar.
Mr. Abe is the first Japanese prime minister to visit Myanmar since 1977, following former Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda's visit to the Southeast Asian country.
Mr. Abe is the first Japanese prime minister to visit Myanmar since 1977.
(Photo: AP)
Accompanying Prime Minister Abe on this visit were business leaders of more than 30 Japanese companies.
Speaking to reporters before arriving in Myanmar, Mr. Abe affirmed that Japan will support Myanmar's reform process through assistance to the country's public and private sectors.
During his stay in Myanmar, Prime Minister Abe is expected to hold talks with President U Thein Sein on economic, trade and investment cooperation between the two countries, meet with parliamentarian and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and visit the Thilawa Economic Zone, 25km south of Yangon, where three Japanese corporations, Mitsubishi Corp., Marubeni Corp. and Sumitomo Corp., are investing in production. In addition, Prime Minister Abe will also deliver a speech at the Myanmar Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Yangon.
Since Myanmar opened to investment in late 1988, Japanese investment in Myanmar as of March 2013 has reached US$270,283 million.
According to official statistics, the trade turnover between Japan and Myanmar in 2012 reached more than 1.4 billion USD, of which, the import turnover of Myanmar was 1.053 billion USD. Currently, Japan is the largest creditor of Myanmar. Since 1970 to April 2012, Myanmar owed Japan over 502 billion yen (about 5 billion USD).
On January 30, the Japanese Ministry of Finance announced that Tokyo had completely written off the debt worth 127.4 billion yen (over 1.2 billion USD), and planned to write off the debt of 176.1 billion yen (over 1.7 billion USD) within a year. Myanmar will have to pay the remaining debt worth 198.9 billion yen (1.9 billion USD) through bridging loans from Japanese commercial banks. In addition, Tokyo also plans to provide preferential credit with low interest rates to Myanmar./.
According to (TTXVN) - DT
