With Western companies under pressure to pull out, Asian firms have filled the void, especially Thai ones. The close economic ties between Thailand and Myanmar were formally sealed by the so-called Pagan Declaration, a pact signed by Thailand, Laos, Burma and Cambodia at the Economic Cooperation Summit held in Pagan (Myanmar) in November 2003. The only foreign investor of any significance who chose to remain in Myanmar’s telecommunications sector was Thailand’s Shinawatra group, and its involvement was limited to leasing satellite transponders and selling equipment to the government and state enterprises.18 In 2004 the MCPT requested assistance from the Thai government on three projects: satellite broadband communications, installation of 1,500 kilometres of fibre optic cables and ICT development. But the Shin group ran into scrutiny back in Thailand over its business dealings with the family of Myanmar’s Prime Minister Khin Nyunt when he was sacked in the fall of 2004.19 As part of a ‘Look East’ foreign policy to forge closer economic and political ties with its Southeast Asian neighbors, India is the latest non-Western investor to enter Myanmar’s telecoms sector, and Myanmar is in an ideal position to balance Indian geo-political interests and influence against those of Thailand and China in pursuing its own national agenda of development. India, along with Thailand, is funding a US$800 million 1,400 km trilateral Trans-Asian highway network project linking the three countries and including Indian loan aid for an optical fiber telecommunication network along the highway. In 2004-5 India extended to Myanmar a line of credit of seven million US dollars for two telecom projects, the commission of a CorDECT WLL (Wireless Local Loop) based basic telephone and Internet network in Yangon and Mandalay and installation of an Optical Fibre Cable between the border towns of Moreh and Tamu, and announced a grant of three million US dollars for implementation of IT-related projects.20 The loan was used to establish a direct telephone link between the two countries to remedy a situation where telephone links between Myanmar and India previously had to be routed via Great Britain. Policy and Regulation Public telecom facilities, fixed and wireless, continue to be state-owned and controlled by Myanmar Posts and Telecommunications (MPT), known also as the Ministry of Communications, Posts and Telegraph (MCPT). Despite the history of profitable sectors of the economy coming under the control of influential military personnel, the government has been concerned to modernize its telecommunication 18 Shin Sat has to supply 6,000 broadband satellite terminals and accessories to Burma's Ministry of Communications, Post and Telegraph by 2006. It sold 5,000 broadband satellite terminals to Bagan Cybertech for its broadband satellite gateway. (The Nation, 21 October 2004) 19 Thailand’s Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra had to defend himself against accusations of a conflict of interest when the Export-Import Bank of Thailand (EXIM) approved a US$15 million loan (600 million baht) to Myanmar in August 2004 for a high-speed Internet project delivered by Shin Satellite’s iPStar service. Exim Bank president Sataporn Jinachitra told the Senate committee on foreign affairs, ‘We have no choice but to follow government policy. Although it was not a written order, it could be understood verbally… This is not a business to which the Exim Bank usually grants loans’. (BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific, September 2, 2004) Politically volatile countries such as Burma, Cambodia and Laos have so far been iPStar's best customers. Khin Nyunt’s demise also raised concern in the Thai legislature about the capacity of the cash-strapped military regime to repay a 12-year, fourbillion Baht loan (US$96 million) at interest of 3 per cent package with the Exim bank, of which the telecoms loan was one part. 20 BBC Monitoring South Asia, 24 March 2005.