Industry & Economy
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Foreign Trade
Thai offers 82 items more to balance trade
Our Bureau
Chennai
,
Sept. 22
EVEN as negotiations for a much larger basket of items under the India-Thailand Free Trade Agreement (FTA) is going on, Thailand has offered to bring "another 82 items" under the Agreement — as a sort of a second `early harvest scheme'.
Mr Prachub Chaiyasan, the Thailand Trade Representative, revealed this to to journalists here on Thursday.
It may be recalled that 82 items were put under an `early harvest scheme' under the FTA, the import duties on which would be progressively reduced and eliminated over three years. The FTA went live with these 82 items in September last year.
Over the past one year, the Indo-Thai trade has doubled to about $2 billion, but the balance of trade is skewed in favour of Thailand.
Responding to concerns raised by some quarters in India, Mr Chaiyasan said that Thailand was open to bringing some more items under the FTA — items of export-interest to India that could restore the trade balance.
He told Business Line that he had mentioned the proposal to the Union Minister for Commerce, Mr Kamal Nath.
Speaking at an Indo-Thai seminar here organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), Mr Chaiyasan said that Thailand would welcome "brain workers" from India. He said that engineers, IT professionals and teachers of English language were in demand in Thailand.
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