Chinese Premier Li Keqiang became the first foreign leader to address Thailand's Parliament in more than a decade today as he began a three-day visit aimed at strengthening ties and seeking business for his country's high-speed railway technology.
Li's speech underscored China's growing influence in Southeast Asia a week after Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered the first speech by a foreign leader to Indonesia's Parliament.
Li told the Thai lawmakers that Thailand and China will boost their trade to USD 100 billion by the end of 2015 and that China will buy more Thai agricultural produce.
"In the next five years, China will import 1 million tons of rice from Thailand and will also import more rubber," Li said.
Thailand's government has struggled to sell much of the rice it has amassed in a rice-buying scheme that is a flagship policy of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra's administration.
