With news of Daewoo’s illegal activities in Burma continuing to emerge on Thursday, observers have been given a rare glimpse into one of the closest business relationships the regime has had with the outside world in recent years.

Lee Tae-Yong, chairman of Daewoo International and the most high-profile of the 14 executives indicted this week, had established a working rapport with the junta that saw him visit Burma at least nine times since the beginning of 2001, and in the process secure one of the largest gas concessions in Southeast Asia.

The crucial deal to build an arms factory near Prome, Pegu Division, worth US $133.8 million signed in May 2002, as reported in the South Korean press this week, came three months after the executive met with former Prime Minister Khin Nyunt at the Ministry of Defense in Rangoon after a flurry of visits to Burma.

The Korean Trade Investment Promotion Agency office in Rangoon told The Irrawaddy on Thursday it knew nothing of the deal, while the embassy was unavailable for comment. Both have been questioned by the prosecution department in Seoul.

Less than a year before the deal was signed, Lee again met with Khin Nyunt at the Defense Services Guest House in Maymyo to discuss “matters related to bilateral cooperation and promoting investment between the two countries,” Burmese state press reported at the time. Six months later, he made another trip to Rangoon to discuss communications.

During this period, Daewoo International’s president met with a host of Burmese officials to discuss mining, oil and gas, communications and industry, and donating medicine worth 35 million kyat ($27,300) along the way.

Then in January 2004, Daewoo announced it had found gas in Burma’s A-1 field, a huge deposit estimated by campaign groups to be worth up to $17 billion for the regime over the next 20 years. It was a crucial discovery. For Lee, cooperation with the junta meant the previously floundering Daewoo had turned its prospects around. After recording a $1.3 million loss in 2004, the company is now expected to net up to $190 million a year as a result of the discovery.

The deal supplying missile technology, for which Daewoo is being investigated, saw Lee benefit personally, the chief prosecutor Lee Geon-Ju has said-90 percent of which has already been paid. Clearly the relationship has become hugely profitable for both parties.

With charges now brought against the South Korean executive, it seems unlikely he will be in a position to follow up his latest trip to Burma, visiting Naypyidaw at the end of June to meet Minister for Communications, Posts and Telegraphs Brig-Gen Thein Zaw.

The effect on the junta’s relationship with Daewoo seems less clear. South Korea’s stock market on Thursday saw the company’s shares edge up 0.12 percent on Thursday despite this week’s revelations. Given that only a tiny fraction of Daewoo’s operations in Burma have been deemed illegal, and those are 90 percent complete anyway, the prospects for this enduring relationship are unlikely to be adversely affected.