Myanmar and China signed 33 bilateral agreements that will bind the south-east Asian country closer to its giant neighbour in January 2020, including rail and deep-sea port projects along an economic corridor linking China’s south-western interior to the Indian Ocean.

Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, and Myanmar’s State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi agreed the projects — long under discussion as part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative global infrastructure plan — on the second day of Mr Xi’s two-day visit to the capital Naypyidaw.

As part of China’s signature BRI project for the country, the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, the two sides signed agreements on railways linking China to Kyaukpyu on the Bay of Bengal in Rakhine, and a final agreement on the building of a deep-sea port there.  The two sides also inked agreements providing for a special economic zone at the Chinese border and made oblique reference to New Yangon City, a planned new industrial quarter in Myanmar’s biggest city that the Chinese state-owned construction company CCCC has proposed building.

Xi Jinping, China’s president, and Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s State Counsellor, agreed rail and deep-sea port projects

“Like a lot of south-east Asian countries, Myanmar is more ambivalent about China than we often think,” said Hervé Lemahieu, director of the Asian Power and Diplomacy Programme at Asia’s Lowy Institute. “But economically, the relationship has gotten stronger.”

Source:
Financial Times (Can be read through google search)