Zaw Htay, director of the office of President Thein Sein, said in an interview that 6,966 prisoners were released in an amnesty.
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They were among 210 foreigners included in the amnesty, prison and Home Ministry officials told Reuters, requesting anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to media.
A second official from the corrections department also confirmed that Chinese nationals would be released.
The Chinese loggers, who mainly did business with the rebels, had kept sending wood back to China despite timber exports having been banned by Myanmar’s government in 2014.
It was unclear if political prisoners were among those freed, said Bo Kyi, of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), which monitors prisoners of conscience, of which more than 2,000 were held in Myanmar’s jails and labour camps under military rule.
It is the latest in a series of amnesties brought about by the government in Myanmar, also known as Burma.
YANGON Myanmar freed 155 Chinese jailed for illegal logging in an amnesty for thousands of prisoners on Thursday, a move that could ease diplomatic tensions with influential giant neighbour China.
One-hundred-and-fifty-three of the Chinese nationals had been given life sentences, which usually last 20 years, for illegal logging, while two 17-year-old boys had been given 10-year jail terms.
An editorial in China’s Global Times at the time slammed the “severity” of the sentences, expressing hope that intervention from Beijing could “reverse” the outcome.
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But observers say the scale of interests China accrued during that period – including dams and mines and a gas pipeline aimed at developing its southern Yunnan province – caused friction and prodded Myanmar towards reforms called for by the worldwide community.
