Nobel peace laureates Professor Muhammad Yunus and Aung San Suu Kyi hold up a peace sign together, as their message to the world during their meeting in Yangon, Myanmar on Saturday. Photo: Yunus Centre

Nobel laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus met Aung San Suu Kyi, an opposition politician in Myanmar and a Nobel peace laureate, at her home in Yangon on Saturday and discussed social business programmes of Bangladesh.

Yunus went to Yangon for a three-day visit at the invitation of British Council in Myanmar.

Yunus was invited to speak to the members of the government, civil society and business community about the potential of social business and the role of business in the country's development.

He talked to Suu Kyi about microcredit, healthcare, education and vocational training, renewable energy social businesses as well as equity investment for the development of enterprises by the unemployed young people of Grameen Bank families.

He thanked her for her support to Grameen microcredit replication programme set up by Grameen Trust in Delta Zone of Myanmar in 1997, which is now operated by PACT, an international NGO, and is the largest microcredit programme serving 700,000 clients in Myanmar currently.

Suu Kyi showed interest in the initiatives of Professor Yunus around the world. She briefed him about the work she has been doing in her constituency to bring development to the rural communities.

Yunus gave his views on the potential of close collaboration between the two countries and the need to resolve the outstanding issues to bring the countries closer to each other.

He said he has been proposing to Saarc countries to invite Myanmar to join Saarc and invited Suu Kyi to support this proposal on behalf of her party.

Professor Yunus invited her to Bangladesh to visit social businesses. She recollected her earlier visit to Bangladesh and expressed her interest to visit again soon.

Suu Kyi said she would like to send a team to visit Bangladesh soon and delegates to attend the Social Business Summit in Mexico City in November 2014.

Professor Yunus invited her to the Nobel Peace Laureates Summit to be held in Atlanta, USA in November of 2015. Yunus is the co-chair of the summit along with President Jimmy Carter.

Earlier, Professor Yunus also met with Professor Aung Tun Thet and Professor Zaw Oo, senior economic advisers of the Myanmar's President Thein Sein, and discussed the social business experience in Bangladesh and around the world and the potential for Myanmar.