Prime Minister of the Union of Myanmar Soe Win arrived in Kunming, capital of Southwest China's Yunnan Province on Tuesday, kicking off a five-day official visit to the country.

During a brief meeting with local officials of Yunnan, Soe Win said he was pleased to see "old friends" again.

The prime minister said Myanmar has always regarded Yunnan as a brother since the two shared a borderline stretching more than 2,000 kilometers and have cooperated with each other successfully in cracking down on drug trafficking.

Myanmar will learn more from China and further promote its cooperation with China, particularly with Yunnan, in such areas as fighting narcotics and planting economic crops to replace opium poppy, Soe Win said.

Qin Guangrong, vice governor of Yunnan, said the economic and trade cooperation between the province and Myanmar has witnessed sound development thanks to the support from both the Chinese and Myanmar governments.

Soe Win, who assumed office in October 2004, came here at the invitation of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. He will also visit Beijing, where he is expected to meet top Chinese leaders, the northwestern province of Shaanxi, and the southern Guangdong Province. The visit will end on Feb. 18.

According to statistics from the Chinese Embassy in Yangon, China-Myanmar bilateral trade hit 1.209 billion U.S. dollars in 2005. Yunnan Province's trade with Myanmar, including the border trade, amounted to 630 million U.S. dollars, a 14.6-percent increase over the previous year.

Source: Xinhua