India is likely to sign a deal with Myanmar this week to develop a port and build waterways and roads there, an official said on Monday, as New Delhi vies with China for access to Myanmar’s oil and gas reserves.

The deal, to be signed during the visit of the junta number two Maung Aye to New Delhi beginning April 2, is aimed at cutting travel time between the Indian mainland and its remote northeast, officials say.

But it will also give India a foothold on the Myanmar city of Sittwe, on an island near the mouth of the Kaladan river, which will become the onshore hub of Myanmar’s gas industry once vast reserves in the Shwe fields in the Bay of Bengal are developed.

India turned to Myanmar’s military rulers after Bangladesh, which sits between the Indian mainland and its far-flung northeast, refused India transit facilities and played hardball over access to its own gas fields.

So, under the new deal, India will help Myanmar develop a port in Sittwe and build roads which will open India’s landlocked, underdeveloped and troubled northeast to international trade through the Bay of Bengal.

Goods can be shipped from India’s eastern coast across a 540-km stretch on the Bay of Bengal to Sittwe from where trucks can carry them to the northeastern Indian state of Mizoram, bypassing Bangladesh.

“The agreement is important for us and mutually beneficial,” an Indian foreign ministry official said, adding that India would extend nearly $100 million in aid for the project.

India has courted the junta since the early 1990s in a bid to counter Beijing’s influence in Myanmar and access its rich oil and gas reserves in a turnaround of a policy that initially supported democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Critics say the policy makes a mockery of India’s democratic ideals.

It has made only a muted call for political reform there despite the violent response to democracy protests last year.

It is also building roads and railways there and has supplied arms.

But New Delhi was disappointed when Myanmar agreed to sell gas from two offshore fields to China last year, even though Indian firms have a 30 percent stake in those fields.

India is also seeking Myanmar’s help in combatting insurgent groups with bases inside its neighbour.