ASEAN-NEWS, NAYPYITAW - Myanmar's reformist President heads to the United States this week, keen to win an end to sanctions and open a new chapter in a once frosty relationship that could bring economic and geostrategic benefits to both sides.

After feting Nobel Peace Prize winner and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in Washington last week, the US will welcome Mr Thein Sein, a 67-year-old former general who emerged as the unlikely catalyst for a wave of reforms that were unthinkable a year ago.

Mr Thein Sein's visit, the first by a Myanmar leader in 46 years, is the strongest sign yet of rapprochement between the two countries - something that will benefit not only the cash-starved South-East Asian nation but could help a superpower intent on boosting its political and economic muscle in a booming region.

US aid to Myanmar could resume at some point and, last Wednesday, the Treasury Department removed individual sanctions against Mr Thein Sein, the latest let-up in the tight restrictions that isolated his country for two decades, squeezed its tattered economy and pushed it closer into China's orbit.

The US Congress last week approved a Bill that would allow President Barack Obama to waive a ban on American participation in providing development loans from international financial institutions like the World Bank to the former British colony.

But crucial to Mr Thein Sein, who leaves Myanmar today to address the United Nations General Assembly in New York, is the removal of a US ban on Burmese imports, which could pave the way for greater foreign investment and create urgently needed jobs.

The European Union set the pace last week in agreeing to grant Myanmar access to its Generalised System of Preferences, a scheme that allows poorer countries access to European markets without quotas or duties.

Presidential adviser Ko Ko Hlaing, who helped smooth the path for Mr Thein Sein's visit, said ending the embargoes would facilitate the kind of reforms the United States has been asking for.

"(The visit) is certainly intended to have some relaxation of restrictions and sanctions," Mr Hlaing said, "because they happen now to be obstacles in our reform process." (AN-55/REUTERS)