Manila - The European Commission is ready to provide more aid to Myanmar but the hermitic South-East Asian country must open up to dialogue with donors on the needed development assistance, a senior European aid official said Tuesday.

Koos Richelle, director general of the commission's Europe Aid Cooperation, said there has been little progress in providing aid to Myanmar because of the military junta's refusal to discuss development programmes needed by the country.

"Myanmar is one of the countries that wants to seclude itself from the outside world," he told a press briefing at the end of a two-day Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) in Manila. "It's not us punishing them, it's them not opening up for what we consider to be normal contact."

"There is no possibility for us to start (development aid) because we are not a money machine throwing envelopes over the fence," he added.

Richelle said the very limited aid that has so far trickled into Myanmar from the European Commission, usually in the area of health, has passed through the various civil society groups.

"We are bringing support to Myanmar through the civil society groups and not through the government," he said. "We speak with them but they don't cooperate so we make very little progress."

Richelle said that the commission had "a very robust system in place" to ensure that development money is spent for the purpose that it was given.

He added that despite the ongoing financial crisis, European Union member-states remained committed to increase their budget for development aid in the next five years.

But Richelle told the start of the Manila meeting that development aid alone can never be enough to spur development and lift people out of poverty.

Representatives from 43 countries and the European Commission who attended the conference discussed a wide range of issues from climate change to effectiveness of aid in spurring development and improving the lives of the Asia's impoverished millions.(dpa)