FTA meeting Tapei Gate

[iainiain101]

Saw lots of Thais out today with orange shirts saying something about 'TFA, No Trips and leave Europe'

The web site is http://www.ftawatch.org/

anyone know what this is all about???

[RaysFan]

I saw this fir the first time yesterday. Ive done no research but judging by the busses they came in on and their cloths I would say they are all farmers or factory workers if some kind. It took me about 45 minutes to get past them.

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[RaysFan]

My girlfriend just read the website she said their againt farang alcohol being cheap.... and they want medicine to be cheaper.

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[RaysFan]

She also just said someone is probably paying them to do this. Thats why everyone there looks like farmers and factory workers and they came in on those third world busses.

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[cmsally]

I have only read a small portion but from the stance of drugs/medicine, it seems the EU is looking to push out the the Thai generic producers of drugs, which would mean a huge hike in prices when purchasing.

ie you think about when you buy the brand name and the generic Thai version which is basically the same - price difference is huge. Might be affordable for you but not the average Thai person.

Another aspect is seeds and agriculture with dangers of the large companies taking over seed production and agriculture. I need to do some more reading on that.

[cmsally]

My girlfriend just read the website she said their againt farang alcohol being cheap.... and they want medicine to be cheaper.

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Its not about medicine being cheaper its about having the generic version which is way cheaper than the brand name from the big pharma. companies.

I can't see how the Thai health system would be sustainable if everyone had to use the brand name products.

Regarding alcohol, I read that the EU wanted zero tariffs for their alcohol.

It will be telling if the alcohol clause is discarded seeing as the meeting is hosted in the hotel of "Mr Beer Chang" or maybe he would just like to send his beer to Europe free.

So far I am yet to see how the Thais are meant to benefit from any of this - absolutely diddly squit I can see so far.

Looks like a multi national onslaught.

[cmsally]

Trips Plus refers to something about intellectual property rights, by the way.

[orang37]

Sawasdee Khrup, Khun Iainiain101,

FTA Watch is a Thai movement/ngo protesting, at this time, what they perceive are unreasonable demands from the EU on trade with Thailand.

Here's an excerpt from a letter the FTA wrote to the EU director: Mr João Aguiar Machado, Deputy Director-General, Directorate-General for Trade, European Commission:

"In the past, we wrote a letter to the representative of the European Union in Thailand to express our disagreement with the EU’s stance of putting pressure on various developing countries, including Thailand, by negotiating an FTA with demands that go well beyond the liberalization of trade, which put forward concerns in at least four important issues, as follows:

Firstly, the requirement to increase the level of protection over intellectual property beyond the requirements in the WTO which will continue to allow the monopolisation of brandname medicines for maximum profit indefinitely, and will destroy competition from generic medicines, which will have a direct impact on public access to medicines.

Secondly, the demand that Thailand ratify the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) Treaty 1991 and the Budapest Treaty, which will facilitate the monopolization of plant varieties and undermine the capacity of small-scale farmers to safeguard their food security.

Thirdly, the protection of transnational investors through a dispute resolution mechanism between investors and the state which will limit the rights of our country to establish its own policies on public health, consumer protection and environmental protection.

Finally, the lifting of impediments to the sale of goods that are harmful to health, such as, alcoholic drinks and cigarettes in developing countries without proper controls, etc.

The issues presented above all work against peace in developing countries.

Currently, the Thai side, including the Head of the Negotiating Team, the civil service officials, and the Thai civil society groups have made a clear public announcement that they will not accept into the agreement any terms which go beyond the terms of the WTO’s Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement mentioned above, in order to avoid any impacts on the public health system and the health of people in Thai society, and guard against the likely impacts on farmers and Thailand’s food security.

Is the European Union ready to put the social welfare of developing countries like Thailand above profits from trade? If so, please clarify how this will be achieved."

As to who/what the FTA "really is," where its money comes from, who the "protesters" are: well, in Amazing Thailand, you never really know ... do you ?

~o:37;

[BlackArtemis]

Thai's can benefit from the alcohol tarifs being lowered by being exposed to a decent beer and realizing their own swill is worthless. Might make the brands here compete to try and make something worth buying and all those newly imported beers are going to need supply routes etc, thus more jobs or jobs replacing the lost jobs at Chang/Singha once people switch brands.

I can dream, right?

[elektrified]

I wonder if this has anything to do with why we have not been able to purchase some generic drugs this last few days? We contacted our wholesaler contact last night who said something about Pfizer (American company) and others putting pressure on the Thai government to sell their products and not the cheaper generics made in Thailand. He said that at the moment, some generics are "not available".

[iainiain101]

Thanks for all your replies.

[cmsally]

More info here: (and update on today's protest)

https://www.facebook.com/ftawatch

[dave2]

re

anyone know what this is all about???

no ... but these pics of it taken yesterday

might help

dave2

[Somnambulist]

There seems to be a lot of info in Thai on the Pun Pun Organic Farm FB page.

[Thighlander]

As much as I dislike Microsoft, and do fine using Chrome; I would estimate Thailand's government, corporations, schools, and citizens owe it about 10 Billion USD for stealing their intellectual property. I'm sure PFE would have some legitimate complaints, also. Intellectual property is a very tough concept for a country whose greatest invention has been baby laxative laced "energy drinks." Long live the Z-rox machine!

[elektrified]

re

anyone know what this is all about???

no ... but these pics of it taken yesterday

might help

dave2

Love the photos!

I guess the American pharma companies are piggybacking on the EU demands? Makes sense.

[Thighlander]

The Canadians were going to jump on the bandwagon until they found out Maple Syrup isn't considered IP.

[worgeordie]

Just tell the EU to f@%k off,they will be telling Thailand they can only sell

straight bananas next,Thailand tell the EU its not your father !,came here

to get away from their mostly stupid policies.like telling the UK every household

had to change all their electrical plugs and sockets to be the same two pin crap

as the rest of the EU.

Good luck to the protesters.

regards worgeordie

[elektrified]

Just tell the EU to f@%k off,they will be telling Thailand they can only sell

straight bananas next,Thailand tell the EU its not your father !,came here

to get away from their mostly stupid policies.like telling the UK every household

had to change all their electrical plugs and sockets to be the same two pin crap

as the rest of the EU.

Good luck to the protesters.

regards worgeordie

The electrical socket thing was a great idea IMO. Also it was 3 pin, not 2. I got sick of carrying different adapters all around Europe when I live there. And in Spain they desperately needed the EU regulation because at one time things were as shaky there as they are here electrical-wise, with 2 pin sockets in the bathrooms, exposed wiring, always getting shocked, etc.

[cmsally]

My first experience of the EU (think it was the EEC then) was when an inspector came to my uncle's farm and told him he had to grade peas according to how many in the pod!

I was only eight at the time, but smart enough to know this was one non intelligent man + organisation.

[mamborobert]

Thailand lobbyists want ALL intellectual property off any FTA agreement not just Pharma and Agro products. Anybody know if IP extends beyond software to say items frequently sold in CM markets... LV bags, Rayban sunglasses,49er baseball hats, coke merchandise, dvd's, Billabong T shirts, Victorinox pen knifes, adidas sandals, nike performance footwear, MU team shirts, assorted parfums, Zippy lighters, Tag watch......possibly anything on Night Market with exception of those bloody wooden frogs (they are Thai Intellectual Property).

Methinks not so simple as say just HIV medication in Africa. African nations respected some IP provisions and copy or patent rights but did ask or require Pharma be excluded.

Not all developing nations seek to take ALL IP off.....but Thailand does

[anto]

Dial a mob .I wonder are they on B300 a day ?

[KRS1]

Thai's can benefit from the alcohol tarifs being lowered by being exposed to a decent beer and realizing their own swill is worthless. Might make the brands here compete to try and make something worth buying and all those newly imported beers are going to need supply routes etc, thus more jobs or jobs replacing the lost jobs at Chang/Singha once people switch brands.

I can dream, right?

Have you tried Singha lately ? much better than in the past.

But a lot of the clubs in the Zoes and Loy Kroh area serve fake Singha as well as Heineken, unusually bitter.

Go to 7-11 and try one, its much better than before and oddly enough i dont get hangovers anymore from real Singha.

[samsara]

Thai's can benefit from the alcohol tarifs being lowered by being exposed to a decent beer and realizing their own swill is worthless. Might make the brands here compete to try and make something worth buying and all those newly imported beers are going to need supply routes etc, thus more jobs or jobs replacing the lost jobs at Chang/Singha once people switch brands.

I can dream, right?

Have you tried Singha lately ? much better than in the past.

But a lot of the clubs in the Zoes and Loy Kroh area serve fake Singha as well as Heineken, unusually bitter.

Go to 7-11 and try one, its much better than before and oddly enough i dont get hangovers anymore from real Singha.

suspected this. how to tell...?

[Loaded]

Thaksin tried to sign a free trade agreement with North America when he was Prime Minister. Now it's his sister's turn to hard-wire in lifetime under the table commissions from Western Pharmaceutical companies. Last time the BP pointed out that 10s of thousands of Thais would die within a few months as HIV medicines would become unaffordable. These FT agreements don't help people, that's a smokescreen, their intention is to install world-wide monopolies. The politicians are their puppets.

[BlackArtemis]

Thai's can benefit from the alcohol tarifs being lowered by being exposed to a decent beer and realizing their own swill is worthless. Might make the brands here compete to try and make something worth buying and all those newly imported beers are going to need supply routes etc, thus more jobs or jobs replacing the lost jobs at Chang/Singha once people switch brands.

I can dream, right?

Have you tried Singha lately ? much better than in the past.

But a lot of the clubs in the Zoes and Loy Kroh area serve fake Singha as well as Heineken, unusually bitter.

Go to 7-11 and try one, its much better than before and oddly enough i dont get hangovers anymore from real Singha.

Sooo a cheap crappy beet for a cheap crappy place. Funny enough, Zoe's prices match Warm Up's prices and I'd much rather be there haha.

Choked down a Singha last weekend in Nimm. area and it might have been better, who knows, it was still a Singha.

I've gotten to the point where I am OK with Leo, but too much feels like it will give me diabetes....

[femi fan]

Sickening, truly sickening. The rich - european and american - corporations messing with people's health everywhere. Buying off politicians in developing and third world nations one by one, so they get more markets for their pills and foods, and local people lose their access to cheap drugs and their own food independence.

Why people still come to these forums with their tired old crap about hiring 'ignorant' farmers and so on to demonstrate, and sneering at the whole system here is beyond me. Their livelihoods are at stake, threatened by the mass-murdering western corporations who don't give a stuff about people dying in their hundreds of thousands around the world so long as they get their gargantuan profits.

I hope the thai politicians resist the bribery coming their way from these murderous corporations, and protect their people's right to cheap drugs and their own food production and supply.

But if the EU fail this time, it's probably only a matter of time with this AEC coming into being.

People all over the world have to protect their drugs and food from these greedy amoral corporations who won't stop until they control the whole world's food and drug supply.

Just check out codex alimentarius if this sounds over-the-top. Everything that happens like this proves that codex is spreading like a sick plague.

[femi fan]

So long as people have got beer and can dull themselves to what's going on with the food supply and drugs supply in thailand then no worries eh.

IT's not about the beer. it's about western corporations systematically bribing government officials all over the world to make laws that promote their profits and kill off local peoples who get substandard food and can't afford drugs to offset the illness they get from this crappy food.

Keep beer to beer threads, there's enough of them.

[Paangjang]

This was taken today at the Loi Kroh intersection

[RaysFan]

No, actually im pretty positive that my girlfriend is correct. These people look like they have been bussed in from their farms and villages. Someone is paying them to demonstrate. She said these kind of people wont get organized and gather like this. And she said these kind of people wont keep up with politics like this in their farms and villegas. I have ti side with her... Go ahead and ask your "middle class " or poor class thai to explain the FTA to you.

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