Indian business leaders view Myanmar as a growing opportunity for trade

Nay Pyi Taw (Myanmar), May 29 (ANI): Indian business leaders, including the chairman of telecom service provider Bharti Airtel, Sunil Bharti Mittal, and steel industrialist and lawmaker, Naveen Jindal, have said that the time is right to increase trade and business with Myanmar in the light of recent developments in the country.

"There is wide scope for improving trade with Myanmar. However, more initiatives needs to be taken to achieve this goal," Mittal told media here.

"You know I do not think so we have missed the bus. This (Myanmar) country is just stating to happen. There is so much to be done, every piece of infrastructure needs to be built and the warm historic relationship that we enjoy I think will come handy for Indian businessmen when they are competing with the rest of the world now," he said.

He also informed that Myanmar President Thein Sein met Indian business leaders and discussed several issue regarding both nations.

Asserting that India is committed to contributing to Myanmar's prosperity, Jindal said: "We are very much in time and there are lots of opportunities here that we can contribute to the development of Myanmar and, that is what the honorable Prime Minister (Manmohan Singh) also said, that along with us, we also have to see that our neighbors prosper, and whatever way Indian companies can contribute to the prosperity, you know we must help."

Dr. Manmohan Singh, the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Myanmar in 25 years, held restricted talks with Myanmar President Thein Sein before the two leaders led their respective delegations for discussions on a range of bilateral, regional and international issues.

Dr. Singh's visit follows a year of dramatic reforms in which Myanmar has pulled back from China's powerful economic and political orbit and won a suspension of U.S. and European sanctions.

President Thein Sein's government has held peace talks with ethnic minority rebels, relaxed strict media censorship, allowed trade unions and protests and held a by-election dominated by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition party. (ANI)