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India, Thailand agree to create FTA

Sujit Chatterjee

In a major move towards boosting bilateral economic cooperation, India and Thailand on Friday agreed to create "very soon" a Free Trade Area and decided to establish within two years a road link between the two countries through Myanmar.

"We agreed that the Indo-Thai Joint Working Group would meet in New Delhi on November 13 and 14 to identify sectors of cooperation for the FTA so that a beginning could be made," Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee said.

Vajpayee was talking to reporters after having wide ranging talks with his Thai counterpart Thaksin Shinawatra during a three-hour halt in Bangkok while returning home from a five-day visit to Cambodia and Laos.

Asked how long it would take to set up the FTA, Vajpayee, assisted by External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha, said, "Very soon. We are advancing well in the joint studies on the FTA."

Describing Thailand as an "important trading and investment partner", the prime minister said discussions were in progress under the Mekong-Ganga initiative to connect India with Thailand by a road link passing through Myanmar.

"A trilateral joint working group involving the three countries would meet this month end to take up the road project and experts will meet soon," Vajpayee said, adding the road link is expected to become a reality within two years.

Vajpayee said Thailand is considering extending a soft loan to Myanmar for the road project.

"The JWG will also consider approaching international lending institutions like ADB for the purpose," he said.

The Thai prime minister told his Indian counterpart that Bangkok's efforts to help in the ASEAN integration process would not be complete without India's participation.

Terming his five-day visit to Cambodia and Laos as "politically important and personally rewarding", Vajpayee said the first-ever India-ASEAN Summit in Phnom Penh marked a "watershed in our efforts at closer integration with our eastern neighbourhood."

Vajpayee said, "It is a logical corollary of our Look East policy that we should reinforce our strong bilateral relations with the countries of South East Asia with an institutional relationship with its regional associations."

"It is a matter of great satisfaction to us that these countries value our common civilisational heritage and reciprocate our efforts at strengthening our political and economic links," he said.

Vajpayee told reporters that every leader in the ten-member ASEAN expressed his warm sentiments at the summit about India's commitment to human resource development in the region, constructed contribution of people of Indian origin to ASEAN's economy and India's important role in promoting the aspirations of developing countries.

"At the summit we agreed on the importance of fully exploiting the synergies between our economies. We have decided to work towards the India-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement within the next ten years," he said, adding that New Delhi would look at special and differential trade treatment for lesser developed ASEAN members like Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

The prime minister made a special mention of the project by India to renovate the historical Buddhist temple Ta Prohm by the Archaeological Survey in Siem Reap.

Referring to his dialogue with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, he said, "We agreed that information technology and infrastructure projects would be the priority areas for our future cooperation."

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