Surin’s two-day visit on 20 February will be the first time he has travelled to Burma since ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations gave their backing last year to President Thein Sein’s bid for the 2014 ASEAN chairmanship.

An official from his office in Jakarta said that the exact schedule has not yet been released, although he is likely to push for meetings with both the government and opposition. The statement said he will travel to Naypyidaw to gauge how the country’s preparations for the chairmanship are coming along.

The head of the 10-member bloc was invited by Burmese Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin, whom according to the statement “wanted the Secretary-General to see Myanmar’s post-Nargis rehabilitation and post-reconstruction activities,” given ASEAN’s role in channelling aid to Burma after the devastating May 2008 cyclone.

Burma’s chairmanship of the bloc comes a year before the 2015 target for full economic integration, but analysts have expressed concern that allowing in a country whose own economic and governance record has been so tainted by decades of military rule will be an over-ambitious challenge.

Others say however that the prospect of chairing the bloc could spur the reform process, given the humiliation for Burma if by 2014 it still holds hundreds of political prisoners and abuses by the military against civilians continue.

Last year Indonesia, who held the chair for 2011 and who had oscillated somewhat over whether to back Burma’s bid, gave its full support for 2014, with foreign minister Marty Natalegawa visiting the country in December.

The current ASEAN chair is Cambodia.

In perhaps the most eye-catching reform among a raft of changes in the country, reports on democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi are no longer taboo as the new government moves towards allowing a free press.

Journalists have also been released from prison and the country crept up media watchdog Reporters Without Borders’ rankings last year — to 169 out of 179 — amid a lightening of one of the world’s most draconian scrutiny regimes.

Now news editors are eagerly waiting to be released from the shackles of pre-publication censorship, with the promised abolition of the information ministry’s Press Scrutinisation and Registration Department (PSRD).

“In the parliament… everybody agreed that the censorship board should be closed,” Ye Htut, director general at the ministry, told AFP, adding that unless the draft media law is altered the department will be closed.

The draft has not been made public, but some media organisations have been invited to submit proposals.

Privately-run English-language weekly the Myanmar Times said its 11 articles cover areas such as journalists’ rights, professional ethics, and how publishers and distributors will be registered.

Tint Swe, the deputy director general of the PSRD, said the draft law was on the attorney general’s desk, according to a report in the Myanmar Times.

It is not expected to be adopted during the current parliament session — dominated by the first budget since the junta relinquished power to a nominally-civilian regime last year — but he said the law would be passed in 2012.

“After that there won’t be any more censorship,” Tint Swe said.

Burma, a military dictatorship for nearly half a century, has long sought to stifle the press, creating an information void, where momentous events were simply ignored or whispered in private in a swirl of rumour.

The new government has surprised observers with a number of positive moves including a major release of political prisoners.

A key sign of change has been the rehabilitation of Aung San Suu Kyi — the junta’s public enemy number one, she was released from house arrest soon after controversial 2010 elections and has since been allowed to launch a bid to enter parliament.

Prominent coverage of the Nobel prize-winning opposition leader was virtually unheard of until last September, when reporters were suddenly given permission to write her name in the paper.

“We’re not afraid anymore to go to the office,” said one journalist, who still asked to speak on condition of anonymity.

The weekly Eleven News ran a photograph of President Thein Sein and Suu Kyi, dubbing them both “Person of the Year” on 4 January.

Two weeks later it pushed even further, publishing photographs of prominent released political prisoners, with a large caption: “Freedom from fear”, echoing the title of a famous essay by Suu Kyi.

“As journalists, we need to expand the freedom of press and maintain the political momentum on both sides, the government and the opposition,” said Than Htut Aung, chairman and chief executive of Eleven Media Group, which has a number of news and sport titles in Burma.

Overseas, exiled media groups, such as the Irrawaddy, Mizzima agency and multimedia broadcaster Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) have also been watching developments closely.

Irrawaddy editor Aung Zaw is back in Burma this week for the first time in 20 years, but there is as yet no move to give exile media permission to open offices in Burma.

“It sounds like the Information Minister Kyaw Hsan is very reluctant to see exile media sweep back in,” said Francis Wade, head of the English language site at DVB.

He said while authorities have apparently lifted blocks on websites of previously banned overseas media, they have increased internet surveillance “and the means to monitor the users has been stepped up dramatically”.

Rangoon-based media groups, eyeing future profits in a country where people read widely, are desperate for new print licences which would allow them to publish daily and so take on the staid, official New Light of Myanmar.

According to a media insider, up to six licences could be granted in the next few months. And the ministry of information admits that the issue is being debated.

“The role of state media will also change. In the past, under the military government, it was a one-party system, the role of state media was only to inform about the government’s policies,” the ministry’s Ye Htut said.

“Now, we’re in a democratic system… we have to write about issues that affect people.”

The two sides signed a pact last month that they hope will bring to an end decades of fighting in the volatile state, which is home to some six million ethnic Shan.

But the Shan State Army (SSA) has voiced concern about the finer details of the agreement, which includes allowing Burmese troops to pass through their territory. Moreover, they have demanded that the Burmese army end ingrained abuses practices in civilian areas that it has largely been able to carry out with impunity.

“If [the army] continues to oppress and commit crimes against the people, such as subjecting them to forced labour, forced relocation, rape and extrajudicial killing, and scorched villages, then the ceasefire will be meaningless,” said a statement read out yesterday at the group’s 65th Shan National Day at Loi Taileng.

The SSA is one of a number of ethnic armies to have signed truces with the government in past two months, although what was billed as a ceasefire with the Karen National Union (KNU) has been mired in controversy: the KNU’s leader, Zipporah Sein, said recently that no official agreement had been made, and that the team sent to negotiate with government officials on 12 January were not in a position to accept terms.

The SSA’s conflict with the central government stretches back nearly half a century. Shortly after it was formed in 1964 it split into two factions, with what came be known as the Shan State Army–North (SSA-N) allying itself with the government.

That relationship appeared to be on the rocks last year after fighting broke out between Burmese troops and the SSA-N, following the latter’s refusal to become a Border Guard Force.

But in late January the SSA-N also agreed a truce with the government, and both factions await further negotiations regarding territory, as well as deciding whether Burmese troops can move around in areas under its control.

Major Sai Min, a spokesperson for the SSA’s political wing, the Shan State Restoration Council, said that the group will assume responsibility for appointing administrative workers in SSA territory, although the extent of autonomy it will enjoy remains unclear.

Lower House speaker Shwe Mann, a former junta number three who is considered one of the country’s most influential reformers, said pay for government workers was not enough to cover “basic daily expenses”.

He said the raise, which will be debated by parliament, should come into effect on 1 April, the same day that the country holds by-elections that will be contested by opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi for the first time.

“We must give a high enough salary to school teachers, the police, soldiers and government staff,” he told MPs, adding that otherwise staff would supplement shortfalls in their income in ways that would damage their “character”.

Shwe Mann wants workers’ living standards brought into line with those enjoyed by government staff around half a century ago, before a wave of disastrous policies by the ruling junta that left the economy in tatters.

Burma’s civil servants are paid low wages compared to other professions and many turn to asking for “tea money”, or small bribes, to survive.

It is not yet clear how many people will see their pay rise as details of who would be affected are yet to be discussed.

The by-elections are seen as a major test of the reform agenda of the new army-backed government that replaced outright military rule last year.

Suu Kyi’s party will contest all 48 seats available.

The democracy icon was on a one-day campaign trip on Tuesday in Pathein, in the Irrawaddy delta region, having attracted crowds of tens of thousands of supporters on a recent trip to southern Burma.

Despite the likelihood of Suu Kyi being swept into parliament by the vote, the number of seats up for grabs is not enough to challenge the dominance of the ruling party.

A quarter of parliament’s seats are now taken up by unelected military officials while the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), which is packed with former soldiers, holds about 80 per cent of the remainder.

Western nations are now considering easing sanctions, further raising hopes of an end to decades of isolation, but controversy surrounding the 2010 vote means the upcoming by-elections will be heavily scrutinised.

The discussions brought together groups whose past relations exemplify the dynamic history of the war-torn eastern state, where six decades of conflict have caused changing allegiances: the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), the Karen Peace Force (KPF) and the KNU/KNLA Peace Council all formed after a split in the KNU in the mid-1990s, and allied themselves to the former junta.

Now however they are in talks to rekindle an alliance, prompted largely by a decision by the KNU to meet with government officials in early January to negotiate a truce. The KPF and the Peace Council had maintained ceasefires with the government, while the DKBA’s was broken in November 2010 after it refused to become a government-aligned Border Guard Force. In December last year however that was rekindled.

“We, all armed Karen associations, need to unite together in the future,” said Saw Lont Lon, foreign affairs coordinator of the DKBA. “We discussed how to unite ourselves, to solve political problems and to build an understanding among the armed groups, all of whom are looking to future … development and peace in the region.”

The issue of designating economic zones in Karen state featured in the talks, Saw Lont Lon added. While the finer details of the ceasefire offers have not been revealed, it is likely the KNU, and indeed the DKBA last year, were offered business concessions along the border with Thailand, where trade in timber can be lucrative.

Saw Lont Lon said however that it was only an informal meeting, but that more official negotiations would take place soon. The hope is to launch a state-wide Karen conference that would include religious, political and social organisations, as well as the armed groups.

Government efforts to negotiate with rebel groups have been largely successful, although fighting continues in Kachin state and several clashes have occurred in Karen state since the ministers met with the KNU on 12 January. The KNU’s General Secretary, Zipporah Sein, told the New York Times however that no official agreement had been signed.

In Karenni state, north of Karen state, rebels from the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP) say they have also agreed among themselves to hold ceasefire talks with Naypyidaw, although details of future meetings with the government’s so-called ‘peace delegation’ are vague.

Additional reporting by Ko Htwe

Myo Thet has been meeting with companies “every day for a year”, he tells DVB. The secretary of Burma’s largest business federation, the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (UMFCCI), is well placed to assess the current developments and says that “there is still rather low interest from the west”.

“There have been some bank owners from the west and also Australia but it’s still low compared to Asian countries. We wish to see more [investment] not only from the east but also the west … because the west, in terms of technology and finance, is stronger.”

Sanctions have been largely to blame for lack of interest from European countries, as well as Australia, Canada and the US, but that could be about to change: the EU has already dropped a longstanding visa ban on President Thein Sein and other ministers, while the US yesterday relaxed restrictions on the World Bank and IMF entering Burma.

But according to industry minister U Soe Thein, who was at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month, companies are “rushing” to Burma, and claimed his maiden appearance at the Forum was proof of the country’s growing status as a strategically key market for the west.

Economic reforms underway are aimed at making the business environment more attractive to western investors, many of whom fear the effects of widespread corruption and conflict in the resource-rich border regions.

Investment figures suggest Asian companies are less nervous about those two factors, with China leading the way in FDI, followed by Thailand and Singapore. Japan is also fronting around a quarter of the capital for the massive Tavoy industrial project in southern Burma, which will eventually cost some $US50 billion.

While much of this is concentrated in the energy sector, with Burma hosting significant gas and hydropower resources, Myo Thet thinks outside interest in the agriculture and service sectors will grow.

“Malaysia is keen to invest in rubber plantations and other forestry and agricultural projects, which can bring outstanding business development,” he said. Later this month around 120 delegates from Singapore will arrive, and Myo Thet they will bring with them a proposal for greater Singaporean investment in the tourism and electricity sectors.

He suggested that Burma was trying to lessen its dependence on China, which has become “the sole monopolist” over the country’s economy, by seeking a greater variety of countries keen to invest in Burma.

In a bid to attract more business interest, the government announced last month that it would offer eight-year tax exemptions to companies newly investing there. The government has also claimed it is revising restrictive investment laws enforced by the former junta.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signed a partial waiver of restrictions imposed on Burma under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, the State Department said in a statement.

The waiver will allow assessment missions and limited technical assistance in Burma by international financial institutions (IFIs) such as the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and the International Monetary Fund.

A nominally-civilian government came to power in Burma last year following controversial November 2010 elections and has since surprised observers with a number of positive moves including a major release of political prisoners.

Clinton in December became the first US secretary of state to visit Burma in more than 50 years in a trip that gave her “some grounds for encouragement,” and where she met its leaders and pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.

The statement issued Monday noted Clinton had committed to supporting IFI assessments during her visit to Burma “in response to encouraging reforms under way in that country.”

Those steps included measures to pave the way for Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy to participate in upcoming parliamentary by-elections, release of political prisoners, broader civil liberties, and preliminary cease fire talks with certain ethnic minority groups, the statement said.

“The [Burmese] government has also taken some steps to address deficiencies cited in the department’s June 2011 Trafficking in Persons Report,” it added.

The political situation in Burma, however, remains tense, with top United Nations human rights envoy Tomas Ojea Quintana Sunday stating the by-elections would be a “key test” of the army-backed regime’s commitment to reform.

The US announcement also came two days after one of Burma’s most prominent rebel groups warned that a ceasefire deal seen as a breakthrough in relations with the regime was “fragile”, as ethnic unrest continues to cloud reforms.

The Karen National Union (KNU) signed a pact with a delegation of ministers from the new government on January 12 in a move that raised hopes of a permanent end to one of the world’s longest-running civil conflicts.

The high-profile Columbia University professor is due to arrive on 9 February, and will stay for five days. In that time he will attend a seminar organised by the UN Development Programme in Naypyidaw, as well as the Rangoon lecture where he will be flanked by two other economists, Ronald Findlay, also of Columbia, and Hla Myint, a former advisor to the Burmese government and now emeritus professor at London School of Economics.

The Rangoon event on 11 February, hosted by the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (UMFCCI) and Myanmar Institute of Economics Graduates Association (MIEGA), is the latest attempt by the government to signal its efforts at reforming the country’s economy, which ironically began to gather steam in late 2009 after Stiglitz paid a visit to advise Naypyidaw on poverty reduction.

In the two years since, the country has undergone a rapid transformation, with the majority of industry first privatised by General Ne Win following the 1962 coup sold to private enterprise, and Rangoon now teeming with businessmen eyeing opportunities amid speculation that western sanctions will soon end.

How much of that came from Stiglitz’s advice is questionable: development in the country, particularly its rural regions, remains a major concern, and while downtown Rangoon is undergoing something of a refurbishment, the long-neglected peripheral states still await the spoils of a shake-up of the economy that, dramatic as it has been, has to date served only business tycoons and, lately, foreign companies.

Stiglitz, whose paper for the conference is entitled ‘Development Strategies for Inclusive and Sustainable Growth’, will attempt to pick up from where he left off in 2009, when the former World Bank chief economist sought to use the economic growth examples of regional neighbours as a blueprint for where Burma could head with a liberalised economy.

His visit will also be hailed by many as proof of the government’s willingness to engage with more progressive voices. Stiglitz was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2001 for work that has largely pivoted on criticism of the free-market in its pure sense, instead arguing for a compromise between that and more state-centred models.

Correction: In the original article we mistakenly referred to Professor Ronald Findlay as Robert Findlay. We have amended the name and apologise for this error.

Nearly 8,000 students are also struggling to access education across 10 Kachin townships, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a report last month that gained little public attention. It warns of dwindling aid supplies in the nearly 90 makeshift refugee camps that have sprung up in the northern state since June last year.

It said that more food aid was needed in response to the “deterioration of the security situation” in and around the conflict zone. Outbreaks of diarrhea have been reported in a number of refugee camps close to the China border.

Up to 3,000 migrant workers and 2,000 natives were forced to flee the jade-rich township of Hpakant “following security incidents” in early January, although it didn’t comment on what precisely happened. Four camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Namkhan township in Shan state have also received around 1,000 people since 11 December.

A number of temporary schools have been opened by the Kachin state government to cater for 3,153 students affected by the fighting. The report said that in Shan Kyaing village, only 13 percent of primary school children continue to attend school.

The conflict between the Burmese army and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) is now in its eighth month. Although reports suggest the intensity of the fighting has eased, skirmishes are continue to break out and Burmese troops are still camped out in locations close to rebel territory.

According to The Irrawaddy news website, a chief negotiator for the government told KIA officials that it could take up to three years for peace to return to Kachin state. The government has attempted to broker ceasefires with other groups, including the Karen National Union, although these have not been watertight and clashes continue.

Aid groups have warned the tens of thousands of Kachin holed up in refugee camps against attempting to return home, given the ongoing presence of Burmese troops. Although President Thein Sein has on two separate occasions told troops to cease attacks on the Kachin, the demands have not been heeded and fighting continues.

An NGO worker who has visited a number of the Kachin camps told DVB on condition of anonymity that a number of the camps’ new inhabitants had arrived from hideouts in the jungle. “There are concerns such as health matters – there were pregnant women due for delivery, and for them to still be in the jungles for the long-term [is risky] so they came to the camps.”

The delegation would focus primarily on bolstering the country’s automobile industry, said Aung Khin Myint of the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (UMFCCI). Currently the automobile industry focuses largely on assembling parts, but Burma wants to develop its own manufacturing sector.

“We need to form a group for automobile industries and to strengthen our production output because the [government] is keen on domestic production rather than imports,” he told DVB.

But the talks lined up between members of the club and Burmese officials point to the rush underway to capitalise on developments in Burma that are primarily aimed at open up the country to investment, both with ASEAN states but also the west.

The EU recently eased sanctions on Burma, and Washington is expected to take similar measures in the near future as both look to secure a stake in what is rapidly emerging as a key strategic market for the west.

As well as the ASEAN Business Club, international delegates are attending a gathering of businessmen and academics in Rangoon organised by the Australian company, AsiaLink, which bills the event as an opportunity for individuals and companies to network prior to the lifting of sanctions.

Such is the rush for Burma that hotels in Rangoon are now at full capacity and teeming with businesspeople. Landlords have sought to exploit the frenzy by bumping up rental fees for office space – Reuters reported that Centrepoint Towers in downtown Rangoon now offers $US30 per square metre for an office, up from $US13 last year. House prices in the commercial capital have also soared.