BANGKOK: Prominent companies from Thailand and the U.K. held their first joint business council meeting Monday to discuss how to increase investment between the two countries, including a possible free trade agreement, just as Britain confirmed its timetable for leaving the European Union by 2019. Representatives from 13 major Thai companies, including PTT, Bangkok Bank, Thai Beverage and Thai Airways International, and 11 U.K. companies, among them Tesco, HSBC and Diageo, took part in the meeting.
The idea for the business council first came up this spring, before the U.K. voted to leave the EU. The group will now put post-Brexit trade arrangements between Thailand and the U.K. on the agenda. Mark Garnier, the visiting British deputy minister for international trade, said the U.K. may form similar business councils with other countries. “We are in a very interesting time in our history,” Garnier told reporters in Bangkok, but he stressed that the U.K. will remain part of Europe and that “opportunities for Thai businesses through the U.K. into Europe will not be closed off.”
The U.K. will consider special value-added and corporate tax schemes to encourage Thai companies to set up offices in the country. PTT, Thailand’s state-owned oil giant, announced the same day that it will create a trading office in London, its second outside Thailand following Singapore. The office will help facilitate trade for Thai companies entering the U.K., the EU and the U.S., said PTT chief executive Tevin Vonvanich.
Thailand, which has seen a sharp fall in exports and foreign direct investment under the military junta, hopes the business council will help turn things around. It has promised to remove “obstacles,” by smoothing visa approvals and allowing private-sector companies to invest in state-owned businesses. “Brexit created the opportunity for Thailand and the U.K. to grow our relationship directly, especially [in] trade, investment and tourism,” Suvit Mesincee, Thailand’s deputy minister of commerce, told reporters.
At Monday’s meeting, the council agreed to form subcommittees to discuss topics such as tourism, technology and easing regulations. The results will be presented to the next meeting, scheduled for April in London. British Prime Minister Theresa May announced Sunday that the U.K. will formally begin Brexit negotiations with the EU by the end of March 2017. This will give it a two-year deadline to leave the bloc, unless all other member countries agree to extend the discussions.
