Malaysia opposes the imposition of economic sanctions on Burma as they would hurt the ordinary people, Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said today.

Syed Hamid, who is in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, said sanctions would not affect the military junta but usually hurt ordinary citizens more.

"Any hard or aggressive action would be counter-productive at this stage," he was quoted as saying by the official Bernama news agency.

"We think the best way of resolving the issue is to get the constitutional process on track, to get the reconciliation going," he added.

Syed Hamid's remarks come after US President George Bush Tuesday announced a tightening of economic sanctions on the military regime and its financial backers and sought global pressure to end the junta's "reign of fear."

Malaysia is a major investor in resource-rich Burma (now renamed Myanmar by the junta).

Syed Hamid last year visited Burma as an envoy of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) to check on the country's reform efforts amid global criticism of the junta's rights abuses but was not allowed to meet with democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.

The visit apparently stalled over his insistence on meeting the Nobel Peace Prize winner, who has been detained for most of the past 18 years.

Burma is a member of Asean, which also comprises Brunei, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Syed Hamid and his Burma and other Asean counterparts attending the UN talks are scheduled to meet in New York on Thursday to discuss the latest developments in the tightly-run state.