David Cameron is expected to visit Burma this week and will be the first western leader to visit the country since it first fell foul of international sanctions in the late nineties.

The moves comes after this month's elections which saw the opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), win all the contested seats.

Jim Della-Giacoma, south east regional director of the International Crisis Group, told the Today programme's James Naughtie that it was "something of a bold move" for the prime minister to visit the country.

"It seems like Mr Cameron is going to beat the rush because international consensus seems to be that reform is heading in the right direction and the way the west should engage with Myanmar is changing," he said.

Mr Della-Giacoma continued to say that Burma is going to be a difficult place to do business because of factors like not having a central bank "but there are opportunities for the government now".

He urged international governments to recognise that it was a bold move for president Thein Sein to allow the NLD and pro-democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Ki to run in the by-election by changing the electoral rules and said that the West should now match it with something equally bold like lifting economic sanctions.

"Removing all political economic barriers would be a move towards proper relations," he said.

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