Myanmar has turned to a new partner to help develop long-held plans to turn Dawei in the southeast of the country into a major port.

Russia’s economic development minister, Maxim Reshetnikov, signed an investment cooperation pact with the Myanmar government over the weekend to develop the port, an oil refinery and a coal-fired power station in Dawei. Russia has also been talking to counterparts in the Southeast Asian nation about building a gas pipeline to Yangon, the country’s former capital.

The Dawei special economic zone is a 196 sq km project on the shoreline of the Andaman Sea. It is located along the Thailand-Myanmar peninsula, strategically close to the Malacca Strait.

Over the years, the Japanese, Chinese, Thais and Indians have all sought to come onboard port development projects at the site to no avail.

In related Russian overseas port news, having lost its strategic post in Syria with the ousting of Bashar al-Assad in December, Russia has this month reached a deal with Sudan to establish a naval base on the war-torn country’s Red Sea coast.