Myanmar Prime Minister General Khin Nyunt arrives in Dhaka today on a three-day official visit.

Prime Minister Khaleda Zia will receive her Myanmar counterpart at Zia International Airport at about 11:45am. He will be accompanied by a 41-member delegation including several ministers and government officials.

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The Myanmar prime minister will lay wreath at the National Memorial at Savar to pay homage to the martyrs of the War of Independence and plant a tree sapling there. He will also place wreath at the grave of president Ziaur Rahman.

Official talks between the two countries will be held today where the two leaders, Khaleda Zia and General Nyunt, will discuss important bilateral issues including trade, commerce and agriculture and construction of the 55-km stretch of highway establishing direct road link between Yangon and Dhaka, foreign ministry sources said.

The visit of the Myanmar prime minister is in conformity with the present government's policy to strengthening bilateral ties with the neighbouring countries, including those in East and Southeast Asia, sources added.

General Nyunt will meet President Iajuddin Ahmed at Bangabahban in the afternoon and later attend a dinner to be hosted by Prime Minister Khaleda Zia at Hotel Sonargaon.

The next two days, he will spend mostly in the port city of Chittagong. He is scheduled to visit several pagodas in Bandarban and Cox's Bazar on Monday. He will also visit Cox's Bazar sea beach.

The Myanmar prime minister will attend a dinner hosted by Foreign

Minister M. Morshed Khan at Hotel Agrabad in the port city on Monday. He will visit Chittagong Export Processing Zones (CEPZ) on Tuesday and leave Chittagong for Yangon the same day.

In fiscal year 2001-02, Bangladesh imported goods worth Tk 16.94 million from Myanmar while exporting that of Tk 2.39 million to that country, sources said.

Our Correspondent from Bandarban adds: Security has been beefed up in Bandarban hill district ahead of the visit of the Myanmar prime minister, who is scheduled to visit a number of pagodas here.