Chiang Mai – Burmese Prime Minister General Thein Sein has said trade with China has risen by sixty percent over the last three years, despite a campaign of stringent trade sanctions against the Southeast Asian country led by the United States.

For the 2007/2008 financial year, trade between China and Burma amounted to 2.4 billion dollars, accounting for almost 25 percent of Burma's total foreign trade. In 2005/2006, trade between China and Burma came to only 1.5 billion dollars.

Major Chinese investment is in the oil and gas, electricity, industrial and mining sectors.

Thein Sein, speaking at the China-ASEAN Economic and Investment Meeting held in Nanning, China, on the 22nd of this month, further said that Chinese investment in Burma accounts for the fourth largest sum of investment in the country.

In the aftermath of the Burmese junta's brutal crackdown on monk-led protests against government policies in September of last year, in which at least 31 people were killed, Washington and the European Union each renewed wide ranging sanctions against Burma.

ASEAN countries, as a whole, are the biggest investors in Burma.