Japan and Myanmar agreed Tuesday to work on creating a report over the coming two years on Japanese support for economic structural reform in Myanmar, a Japanese Foreign Ministry official said.

The report will be prepared based on discussions by three bilateral working groups, covering the fields of finance, industry and trade, and agriculture and rural community development, the official said.

The two sides reached the agreement in two days of talks in Tokyo by a joint task force including government representatives, business leaders and influential academics from the two countries.

The Japanese government was represented by the Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry and the Finance Ministry. The Myanmar team was led by David Abel, a minister at the Office of the Chairman of the State Peace and Development Council, Myanmar's ruling body.

It was the joint task force's second meeting. The first took place in Yangon in June.

The Japanese government argues the kind of support it envisions for Myanmar would be humanitarian in nature and aimed at creating an atmosphere that would lead to democracy in the country.

At the time of the Yangon meeting, the United States complained that Japanese support would mean backing the military government and urged Japanese officials to meet prodemocracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi while in the country.

The Japanese government froze official aid to Myanmar after the 1988 military coup, but resumed humanitarian financial assistance in 1994.

Algerian gas project

Japan National Oil Corp. said Tuesday it will join a gas field development project in Algeria to ship liquefied natural gas to Japan from September 2003.

Development of the Ohanet gas field in southeastern Algeria will be carried out by Ohanet Oil & Gas Co., which is 50 percent owned by Japan National Oil, a government-affiliated corporation to invest in oil and gas undertakings, 35 percent by a unit of trading house Itochu Corp. and 15 percent by Teikoku Oil Co.

By 2002, Japan National Oil will provide 5.3 billion yen in investments and loans to Japan Ohanet Oil & Gas in addition to debt repayment guarantees of 12.5 billion yen.