Burma, officially known as Myanmar, is a developing country and an important natural gas and petroleum producer in Asia. It is home to one of the world's oldest petroleum industries, with its first crude oil exports dating back to 1853. Today, the country is one of the major natural gas producers in the Asian continent. Decades of isolation, sanctions, a lack of technical capacity, opaque government policies and insufficient investment has impeded the country's efforts to develop an upstream hydrocarbon sector. Recent but slow political reform has led the international community to ease sanctions on Burma, giving rise to hopes of greater investment and economic growth.