WASHINGTON, May 12 (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury Department said on Monday that it was easing restrictions on amounts that U.S. individuals are allowed to send to crisis-stricken Myanmar.

The Treasury said that, after consulting the State Department, its Office of Foreign Assets Control was issuing a license permitting U.S. financial institutions to process unlimited amounts of funds in the form of personal remittances to Myanmar.

Previously, personal remittances to Myanmar could not exceed $300 per Burmese household in any three-month period.

Myanmar's military government is accepting aid from the outside world for an estimated 1.5 million people facing hunger and disease in its cyclone-ravaged Irrawaddy delta.

The Treasury said the new license it was issuing would not permit money transfers to or through people who are blocked under a sanctions program that the United States maintains against Myanmar.

(Reporting by Glenn Somerville, Editing by Sandra Maler)

AlertNet news is provided by