Gen. Prayut: accelerate FTA
Gen. Prayut: Chan-o-cha, Prime Minister of Thailand.
Thai Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha has called for accelerating the process of finalizing the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between India and Thailand.
Almost 30 agreements have been signed between India and Thailand but there was a need to implement these with vigor with focus on taking action and creating a win-win situation for both India and Thailand, said Gen. Prayut.
Addressing a business session on “India-Thailand: Partners in Progress for Economic Cooperation”, he said that the governments of ten two countries were facilitating the private sector by liberalizing policies and it was now the private sector which had to stimulate the economic growth.
Gen. Prayut said that the major sectors of interest between India and Thailand were alternative energy, automotive industry, automotive electronics, auto parts, electronics industry, food industry, natural rubber industry, software industry, yacht building, electrical & electronics, chemicals, transportation & trading industry, textiles, spa, real estate, gems & jewellery, food processing, automotive industry, amongst others.
He added that tourism was a sector where intensive engagement was essential to promote two-way tourism throughout the year.
Speaking on value chain creation, General Prayut said that there was a need to develop supply and production chain and linkages to enhance trade and investment opportunities between the two nations.
He added that in Thailand, taxes were being harmonized and rules and processes were being waived off to facilitate investments in Thailand.
Meanwhile, General V K Singh, Minister of State in the Ministry of External Affairs, invited Thai business community to invest in India and urged the industry on both sides to explore more avenues for cooperation and capitalize on the strengths of each other to take the economic and strategic partnership forward.
He pointed out that India’s “Act East” policy has brought a new dynamism to the economic policies.
Gen. Singh noted that India could learn a lot from the experiences of Thailand as they had successfully developed an airport on a marshy land.
He added that next year India and Thailand would complete 70 years of diplomatic relations and the two nations will celebrate it to further deepen the bond.
The first India-Thailand Business Forum was also established with the aim of higher level of business engagement between the two nations during the Thai Prime Minister visit from June 16 to 18, 2016. fii-news.com.
