India and Myanmar agreed Thursday to consider ways of transporting natural gas from fields off western Myanmar to the energy-hungry giant next door, officials said.
The deal, along with two other pacts on satellite imaging and education, was signed after talks between visiting Indian President Abdul Kalam and junta leader Senior General Than Shwe in Yangon.
India's top foreign ministry official Shyam Saran told reporters in Yangon that they did not discuss the house arrest of Myanmar's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. "It did not come up in the talks," he said.
Kalam's visit, the first by an Indian head of state to Myanmar, has focused on business interests between the world's largest democracy and its military-ruled neighbour.
"Currently, the two-way trade is 400 million dollars," Saran said. "Our president said that our target should be at least one billion dollars."
India has been trying to negotiate a three-billion-dollar deal to run a pipeline from Myanmar and across Bangladesh to the eastern Indian city of Kolkata, but has failed to make any headway in the talks.
The agreement signed Thursday would also allow studies into running a much longer pipeline through north-east India, which borders Myanmar, or converting the gas to liquefied natural gas for shipping.
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