During a meeting with Myanmar President U Thein Sein, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday welcomed the beginning of political, economic and social reforms in the neighbouring country.
Singh expressed his “readiness” to share India's experiences in evolving parliamentary rules, procedures and practices with Myanmar. Speaker of the Lower House of the neighbouring country’s Parliament has been invited to lead a delegation to India in December 2011.
Six months after taking office, Myanmar's President was on his maiden visit to India on a host of issues, including the intensification of economic, energy and security cooperation between the two countries.
Marking a major upsurge in bilateral ties, Singh announced a $500 million line-of-credit to Myanmar for a slew of development projects, including irrigation, taking the total soft loan assistance to over $800 million.
This is in addition to nearly $300 million that India had extended earlier for several infrastructural projects, including the development of railways, transport, power transmission lines and oil refinery.
The two countries also decided to expand security cooperation, ease border trade and scale up energy investment.
India and Myanmar agreed for a meeting between the External Affairs Ministers of the two countries in New Delhi in early 2012 and the next round of foreign office consultations in India at “mutually convenient” dates in 2012.
Both sides reaffirmed their “unequivocal and uncompromising” position against terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. They agreed on enhancing effective cooperation and coordination between the security forces of the two countries in tackling the deadly menace of insurgency and terrorism.