By Kang Hyun-kyung
South Korea will resume offering loans to Myanmar six years after it halted its development assistance to the Southeast Asian country in 2005 given the regime’s repression of human rights.
An official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said Tuesday working-level talks to determine which entities are to be beneficiaries of the loan programs are now underway between the two sides.
Analysts say the South Korean government’s resumption of financial support for Myanmar comes against the trade and security backdrop.
Before it suspended development assistance to Myanmar in 2005, South Korea had given it aid and grants worth a combined total of $120 million.
The announcement of South Korea’s resumption of development assistance to Myanmar came days after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met Myanmar’s pro-democracy fighter Aung San Suu Kyi during her recent trip to the Southeast Asian country.
As an ally of the United States, South Korea has stakes there, too. Myanmar cooperated with North Korea in developing its missile system amid allegations that the two countries also collaborated in a nuclear weapons program.
Besides the proliferation issue, South Korea has economic interests in Myanmar.
Several South Korean firms are operating in Myanmar to construct a gas pipeline. Among the multiple separate pipeline projects, Daewoo International is involved in the Shwe natural gas fields, which consist of three independent gas deposits.
The South Korean firm accounts for 51 percent of the Shwe natural gas field ownership.
Last year, Hyundai Heavy Industries announced it had signed a $1.4 billion deal with Daewoo International to be part of the gas field project.
Recently Suu Kyi, who was released from detention in 2010 after nearly 20-year-long house arrest, declared a bid to run in the upcoming by-elections.
Her party, dubbed the National League for Democracy, finished its registration as a political party in order to join the election. Voters there are to select 48 lawmakers but polling days have yet to be set.
Clinton was the highest-ranking U.S. official who visited Myanmar in 50 years.
Her historic visit came in the wake of U.S. President Barack Obama’s commitment to bolster ties with countries in the Asia-Pacific region during his recent Asia trip.
Clinton’s visit coincided with China’s courting of resources-rich Myanmar in an alleged attempt to prevent it from being under influence of the U.S. government.