(VNF) - The United States President Barack Obama formally announced the lifting of U.S. sanctions on Myanmar on October 7^th by terminating an emergency order that deemed the policies of the former military government in Naypitaw a threat to U.S. national security, which had been imposed on Myanmar for almost two decades.

President Barack Obama and Myanmar’s State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi. (Source: AFP)

The decision followed a meeting between Obama and Myanmar’s State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi in Washington last month.

President Obama signed an administrative order terminating an emergency state that deemed the policies of the former military government a threat to U.S. national security.

The emergency order was imposed in 1997 by former President Bill Clinton and strengthened a decade later by the subsequent George Bush administration.

In his letter to the U.S. House and Senate speakers, Obama stressed that his decision to reinstate preferential treatment for Myanmar under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program, will give US businesses and non-profit institutions greater incentive to invest in Myanmar. He said he hopes Naypidaw will become a U.S.’s democratic and prosperous partner.

“I have determined that the situation that gave rise to the national emergency has been significantly altered by Burma’s (Myanmar’s) substantial advances to promote democracy, including historic elections in November 2015,” Obama said in the letter./.

( Compiled by VNF )