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BURMA RELATED NEWS - September
02, 2002.
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HEADLINES
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AP - EU mission to visit Myanmar next week
Xinhuanet - Myanmar forms
cooperatives to help develop economy ã??ã??
Xinhuanet - Myanmar opens
more drug treatment centers
Xinhuanet - S. Korean
company to exploit gas in Myanmar
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EU mission to visit Myanmar
next week
Mon Sep 2, 1:31 AM ET
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) - A European
Union mission will arrive in Myanmar next week for a three-day visit, the first
since the release of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest in
May, diplomats said Monday.
The four-member E.U. mission will arrive Sept. 8, led by Carsten Nilaus
Pederson, regional director at the Danish Foreign Ministry. The other members
include two E.U. officials and the first secretary of the Greek Embassy in
Bangkok, the diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Greece will take
over the E.U. presidency in January.
The E.U. team is scheduled to meet with Suu Kyi, government leaders, senior
members of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party and some leaders of
ethnic groups, the diplomat said.
The European Union, one of the strongest critics of the ruling military
junta, imposes heavy restrictions against members of the regime from traveling
in Europe.
The junta came to power in 1988 after crushing a pro-democracy movement. It
called elections in 1990 but annulled the results after the National League for
Democracy won. It has held reconciliation talks with Suu Kyi since October 2000
and but no substantial progress has been made.
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Myanmar forms cooperatives to help develop
economy ã??ã??
Xinhuanet 2002-09-02 12:38:41
YANGON,
Sept. 2 (Xinhuanet) -- Myanmar has
formed cooperative societies in agricultural, livestock breeding and fish and
prawn breeding sectors to help develop economy in the country's rural areas.
According to the figures released by the Myanmar Ministry of
Cooperatives on Monday, the number of cooperative societies established in the
agricultural sector has come to 7,760, while that in the livestock breeding
sector to 975 and that in the fish and prawn breeding sector to 102.
Meanwhile, according to other official sources, cooperative societies
have also been formed in other sectors such as industrial producers'
cooperatives in the industrial sector, credit cooperatives in the financial
sector and trading and exporting cooperatives in the trade sector.
Myanmar promulgated its Cooperative Society Law in 1992 with the aim of
creating opportunities to widely do business in line with the market-oriented
economic system introduced since 1988.
The country's cooperative sector
contributes about 2.1 percent to its gross domestic product.
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Myanmar opens more drug treatment centers
Xinhuanet 2002-09-02 12:03:43
YANGON, Sept. 2
(Xinhuanet) -- Myanmar has opened 20
more major drug treatment centers and 22 more smaller ones at public hospitals
across the country as part of the government's 15-year drug eradication plan
which began in 1999, the local Myanmar Timesreported Monday.
The number
of such major centers, set up to promote services inhigh-risk areas and to
reduce drug addiction problem, has now cometo 26 and smaller ones to 44, the
Myanmar Ministry of Health was quoted as saying.
The centers, which will
carry out treatment as well as precaution of drug-related diseases such as HIV,
hepatitis B and Camong intravenous drug users, will also serve as a source of
information for the prevention of drug use, the report said.
It added
that doctors at the centers will be trained with the assistance of the World
Health Organization.
According to official statistics, Myanmar has a
total of 68,395drug addicts in the whole country as of February 2002.
Meanwhile, according to the latest report of the UN Office for Drug
Control and Crime Prevention (ODCCP), 2.4 percent of Myanmar's population, aged
15 and above, smoke opium daily compared to a global average of 0.3 percent of
the population taking opium once or more in a year.
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S. Korean company to exploit gas in Myanmar
Xinhuanet 2002-09-02 11:06:41
YANGON, Sept. 2
(Xinhuanet) -- The Daewoo
International (DI) of South Korea is planning to start drilling natural gas from
a huge offshore gas field near Sittway in Myanmar's western Rakhine stateby
November next year, the local Myanmar Times reported Monday.
The Rakhine
gas field, estimated to have a gas reserve of about 13.4 trillion to 47.3
trillion cubic-feet (TCF) (379.2 billion to 1,338.5 billion cubic-meters),
possesses the potential to be larger than Myanmar's two other major gas fields
in production -- Yadana and Yetagun, the DI was quoted as saying.
The
Yadana in the gulf of Mottama and the Yetagun off Tanintharyii coast are
reported to have 6.7 TCF (189.61 billion cubic-meters) and 3.2 TCF (90.56
billion cubic-meters) of gas respectively.
The DI signed a production
sharing contract on the exploration project with the Myanmar Ministry of Energy
in August 2000 and it assigned 10-percent share to another South Korean company,
KOGAS, in November 2001.
According to official statistics, since Myanmar
opened to foreign investment in late 1988, contracted investment in the oil and
gas sector has so far reached 2.563 billion dollars.
The investment
includes those under 34 contracts in exploring oil and gas at 47 inland blocks
and 15 joint venture contracts with the state-run Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise
under the ministry in the same undertaking at 25 offshore blocks at
Mottama,Tanintharyi and Rakhine coastal areas.
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