MYANMAR has the potential to become a major supplier of energy to the region through collaborating with its partners in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a senior government official said late last month.

The deputy director general of the Energy Ministry’s Energy Planning Department, U Thein Lwin, said that while Myanmar had many unexploited energy resources, the region’s main energy exporters, Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia, were expected to exhaust their reserves in 20 years.

U Thein Lwin was speaking on the sidelines of the first of a two ASEAN energy meetings hosted by Myanmar at Traders hotel.

A regional energy policy and planning sub-sector network meeting was held at the hotel on April 26 and 27. It was followed by a meeting of the working committee for the ASEAN Plan of Action on Energy Cooperation on April 28 and 29.

The meetings, attended by about 70 delegates from the ASEAN countries, were held to discuss an ASEAN energy security planning program and a draft for the plan of action, to be implemented from 2004 to 2009.

U Thein Lwin said the meetings also decided to propose a plan for seeking finance to develop the sector which will be discussed at a meeting a senior ASEAN energy officials in Manila next month.

He said Myanmar needs technology and finance to exploit its energy resources and it would benefit from working with its ASEAN partners rather than trying to seek finance on its own.