STATE VISIT
Indian PM here for trade talks
Supalak Ganjanakhundee
The Nation

Manmohan Singh seeks to enhance ties, discuss Dawei link, tariff cuts

BANGKOK: -- Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will arrive in Bangkok today for a two-day official visit to enhance bilateral relations, reaffirming Thailand as a gateway to forge links between India and Southeast Asia.

"We have very close, friendly and growing relations between India and Thailand, and Thailand is also an important component of our Look East policy," Indian Ambassador to Thailand Anil Wadhwa said in an interview.

His Majesty the King will grant Singh a royal audience at Siriraj Hospital shortly after his arrival in the afternoon, he added.

Singh and Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra will sign several documents today to strengthen the ties in various fields, including an extradition treaty, memorandum of understanding for cooperation in space, education and financial control, he said.

The current visit is the first official visit by Prime Minister Singh to Thailand. He has visited several times before, but for multilateral events such as in 2004 for the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation, or the Bimstec summit, and in 2009 for the India-Asean summit.

The discussion with Yingluck will cover bilateral, regional and multilateral issues for the benefit of bilateral ties and connectivity to link India and Asean via Thailand.

The two prime ministers will outline the framework of a Thailand-India comprehensive free-trade agreement in order to reach a conclusion, perhaps by this year, Wadhwa said.

The previous talks in New Delhi last November made some progress, but the major task to be overcome is to fine-tune how to open access to both countries' service sectors, he said.

In fact, an early harvest scheme of the free-trade agreement, with tariff exemption for 84 items of goods, has been in force since January 2010, and the scheme has contributed to a high level of bilateral trade, he said. Two-way trade between the two countries reached $9.2 billion in 2012-13.

The Thai-backed Dawei special economic zone in Myanmar will be another topic of discussion between the two premiers exploring possibilities for cooperation from New Delhi, as Thailand wants to promote the project to connect India and Asean countries.

"We expect that the Dawei project will emerge as a major regional logistic hub and open shorter and quicker sea routes to major Indian ports such as Chennai, Vishakhapatnam and Kolkata," Wadhwa said. The project would also open business opportunities for the region and Indian infrastructure companies were interested in participating in the development, he said.

The Dawei project is part of a logistical link Thailand offered to help fulfil India's Look East policy. The policy was launched in 1991 to cultivate extensive economic and strategic relations with Southeast Asia, but has not yet become tangible.

A plan to have a physical link between Thailand and India via Myanmar is being implemented with a trilateral highway project. India's contribution will be in the Northeastern states and helping Myanmar build and upgrade roads and bridges inside Myanmar, while Thailand will do its part to link to the Myanmar port. The project was expected to be completed by 2016, Wadhwa said.


-- The Nation 2013-05-30

There's gonna be a rice-for-curry G2G deal. No wait, India is the no. 1 rice producer.

Dawei is sinking faster than Bangkok.