This project seeks to deepen the ties of trust between
Myanmar and other Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN) countries by promoting dialogue
between a group of opinion leaders from ASEAN and the
State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) and the
National League for Democracy (NLD) in Myanmar.
Although the SPDC and the NLD have resumed dialogue,
this year the SPDC continued to maintain that it was still
too soon for NLD representatives to take part in the
project. Therefore, like last year, the emphasis was on
dialogue between ASEAN opinion leaders and SPDC
representatives.
An international conference, "The e-Commerce
Revolution: Opportunities and Implications," was held in
Yangon March 6Ð7, 2001. The focus was on economic
globalization and the so-called digital divide, issues that
the Myanmar regime must address. The participants
included some 150 SPDC representatives, high
government officials, scholars, researchers, and business
leaders from Myanmar and eight experts from other
ASEAN countries and elsewhere. There was discussion of
various problems regarding economic globalization and
the information technology revolution facing Myanmar,
and the participants-especially the SPDC representatives-
appeared to gain a greater awareness of the issues
involved.