BANGKOK: Thailand will adjust its international trade policy by conducting strategic partnerships with priority countries that deepen cooperation in key sectors – focusing on trade, investment, tourism, and infrastructure, Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak said yesterday.
After chairing a meeting with officials from the Commerce Ministry, Somkid said that Thailand needed to deepen cooperation with key trade partners by focusing on strategic partnerships after facing delays and other obstructions with its ongoing free-trade-agreement negotiations.
The priority countries that Thailand aims to forge strategic partnerships with are India, China, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam. Under the move, Thailand aims to sign agreements with partner countries related to certain sectors that develop the sectors for both sides. Somkid said that Thailand and China could sign a partnership for digital and hi-tech industries, Thailand and India could ink q deal for services, professional services, and IT and the Kingdom and Myanmar could partner on infrastructure development.
“The strategic partnerships will become a new platform for trade-negotiation strategies for the country as it could in the short run focus on key industries, while Thailand will continue to conduct [negotiations for] free-trade agreements parallel to it as the FTAs are quite complicated and take a longer time,” Somkid said. He said the country adjusting its international trade policy would service its industry 4.0 model which focused on hi-technology industries and was designed to promote trade growth with partner countries.
Somkid also encouraged the Commerce Ministry’s Business Development Department and the Intellectual Property Department to support new entrepreneurs and startup enterprises while commercialising intellectual property to help drive business growth. With lingering concerns about the health of the domestic economy, the ministry has been ordered to maintain its cost-of-living controls. Commerce Minister Apiradi Tantraporn said the ministry planned to follow up bilateral negotiations with Japan, India, Iran, and Oman. To help promote trade growth, the ministry will focus its negotiation on trying to solve non-tariff barriers.
