YANGON (AFP) — Military-run Myanmar is to begin exporting rubber to North Korea, in a further warming of relations between the reclusive governments of the two countries, a weekly newspaper reported Tuesday.
Communist North Korea only restored diplomatic links with the junta in April last year, more than two decades after they became estranged over a deadly bomb attack on Myanmar soil.
"They will start by importing at least 10,000 tonnes within the first year," Khaing Myint of the Myanmar Rubber Planters and Producers Association was quoted as saying by the Myanmar Times.
Khaing Myint said Kim Sok Chol, the North Korean ambassador in Yangon, confirmed the decision to the association on August 14.
"We are extremely pleased to add another client nation to our export destinations for our rubber. We expect the first batch to be delivered in October," Khaing Myint reportedly said.
Myanmar and North Korea severed ties in 1983 after the North staged a deadly bomb attack on a South Korean government delegation at the Martyr's Mausoleum, near the famous Shwedagon pagoda, in Myanmar's main city Yangon.
The attack aimed to assassinate South Korea's then-president Chun Doo Hwan who was on an official visit.
Chun survived the blast but it killed 17 of his entourage, including four cabinet ministers, while 17 others were wounded. Four Myanmar officials also died in the blast.
Both Myanmar and North Korea are subject to economic sanctions from Washington and have been harshly condemned by the United States.
Myanmar produced 70,000 tonnes of rubber in the 2006-07 fiscal year and expects to produce 75,000 tonnes in the current financial year.
It uses only 15 per cent of its rubber domestically, exporting the rest.
Myanmar has been ruled by the military since 1962.
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