 "Manmohan Singh,Yingluck Shinawatra")
In a major breakthrough, India and Thailand today agreed to conclude negotiations on a comprehensive free-trade agreement “soon after June-July this year”. The two countries also clinched an extradition treaty and signed a cooperation agreement on anti-money laundering.
While the joint statement issued after discussions between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Thai counterpart Yingluck Shinawatra here this evening did not give a timeframe by when the FTA will be signed, Ashok Kanth, Secretary — East, said it was expected as early as October this year. The two leaders have asked their commerce ministers to take “personal charge and show the required flexibility” of the FTA to make this possible, Kanth added.
The FTA has been under negotiations for nearly a decade now and it has taken 27 rounds of meetings to iron out the rough spots. Trade and investment relations between the two countries have improved significantly after the two concluded the framework agreement on FTA in 2003. An early harvest scheme of the FTA, with tariff exemption for 84 products, came into force as early as 2004.
Over the past five years, trade between the two countries has been increasing at more than 15 per cent per annum. Last year, it crossed $9.2 billion – exactly half the volume of Indo-Japan trade volume.
Singh, who came to Thailand for the first time on a bilateral visit (the earlier trips were for multilateral events only), said the FTA was necessary as both countries were planning massive investments in infrastructure over the next five years.
Meanwhile, the signing of India’s 39th extradition treaty after 20 years of negotiations will remove a major headache for New Delhi as Thailand has for long been used by underworld dons not only to evade arrests by law enforcers in India but also to escape attacks by rival gangs.
For example, Chhota Rajan had survived an assassination attempt on him in a hotel in Bangkok in September 2000, when his former boss, Dawood Ibrahim, purportedly sent sharpshooters to kill him. Though one of his associates was killed, Rajan managed to escape with a bullet injury and later also fled from a hospital to escape arrests by a Mumbai Police team that rushed to Bangkok to catch him. The immediate extradition could be that of Munna Zingda, a Dawood Ibrahim aide who is wanted by the Mumbai police in several cases. India and Thailand already have a mutual legal assistance treaty and the two countries also signed an agreement for transfer of sentenced persons during Shinawatra’s visit to New Delhi in January this year. In addition, the two sides signed a memorandum on cooperation in anti-money laundering.
There were at least a couple of big initiatives on the connectivity front. First, India will explore cooperation on the Dawei special economic zone in Myanmar, which is expected to emerge as a major regional logistic hub and open shorter and quicker sea route to Indian ports in Chennai, Visakhapatnam and Kolkata. The project will also open business opportunities for the region and Indian infrastructure companies are interested in participating in its development.
Second, a plan to have a physical link between Thailand and India via Myanmar is also being implemented with a trilateral highway project as it would enhance the connectivity between the Mekong sub-region and India. India’s contribution will be in the northeastern states and helping Myanmar to build and upgrade roads and bridges inside that country, while Thailand will do its part to link to the Myanmar port. The project is expected to be completed by 2016. The two Prime Ministers also welcomed establishment of a Thailand-India Business Forum to expand the role of the private sector in business partnerships. The two sides also agreed to provide fast-track business visa service.
The statement said there was a need for an institutional arrangement on the social security benefits of the workers in each other’s countries, which will facilitate labour mobility. An agreement to this effect is expected soon. The two sides also agreed to strengthen maritime and defence relations, including through exchanges, exercises and joint patrolling. Besides, the two countries will explore industry collaboration in the defence space. More joint initiatives will be taken in areas such as science and technology, space science, education, culture and people-to-people exchanges.
The seven treaties/MoUs signed
** Extradition Treaty – 20 years in the making, this will help in expediting extradition of fugitives
** MoU on anti-money laundering programme – To help facilitate cooperation in the investigation of persons suspected of money laundering and criminal activity
** Ratification of treaty on transfer of sentenced persons – This provides opportunity to foreign nationals who have been convicted to serve their sentence in their own country
** MoU on establishment of Thailand-India Exchange – Will foster increase of economic, scientific, educational, technical and cultural cooperation
** MoU on geo-informatics and space technology – To facilitate urban mapping by carrying out survey of a chosen town of 100 sq km area in Thailand
** MoU on mapping and geospatial technology applications – The objective is to publish an Archeological Atlas
** MoU between ICAR and Thammasat University – To establish a Hindi Chair at Thammasat University
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BANGKOK DIARY Thailand’s Subbarao Reserve Bank of India Governor D Subbarao is not alone in resisting pressure from the finance ministry to cut rates by a higher margin. Bank of Thailand Governor Prasarn Traiatvorakul cut the policy rate by 25 basis points on Wednesday even though the country’s finance minister went public with a demand for a 50-75 bps reduction. The similarity doesn’t end there. Subbarao’s concerns about lack of monetary policy transmission seem to be the same as his counterpart in Thailand. A day after the policy rate cut, the head of Siam Commercial Bank said he needed to review the liquidity position and would certainly not be a leader in reduction of interest rates Bodhi tree diplomacy PM Manmohan Singh presented a sapling of the original Bodhi tree from Bodhgaya to the Thai King. Though Singh was originally scheduled to meet the ailing king at Bangkok’s Siriraj Hospital, a last-minute medical advisory prevented him. Instead, the sapling was given to Thai PM Yingluck Shinawatra who will forward it to the king. Indian and Thai diplomats are seeing this as a goodwill gesture, as Buddhists in Thailand and around the world worship the Bodhi tree as sacred The Bangkok-Tokyo divide The Japanese media broadly ignored the Indian PM's visit to their country. Over the three days the PM was in Tokyo, there were only a couple of one paragraph news items in the papers apart from a few sponsored supplements by Indian companies with business links in Tokyo. Only one local newspaper played up the joint statement as its main story of the day. Asked about the lukewarm media response, one of the senior most Japanese government officials said with tongue firmly in his cheek that even he was angry about it. But the Thai media seems to be more than making up for that. All the leading dailies in Bangkok have splashed the PM’s two-day visit on their front pages China guides Thai tourism The Thai economy is facing growth pangs but the tourism industry is booming. The Tourism Authority of Singapore has set a target to lure 24.5 million tourists, up from 19.09 million last year. And the target for 2015 is an even more ambitious 30 million. To put the figures in context, foreign tourist arrivals in India in 2012 were 6.65 million. Apart from its famous sea, sand and sun, the tourism industry in Thailand is thanking a Chinese movie, Lost in Thailand, which was shot in the northern part of the country, for the surge in tourism. That’s evident from the growing number of Chinese tourists after the mega-hit movie was released |
