Kingdom high on EU agenda for FTAs

“We would more than welcome an FTA with Thailand. The country is an industrial base,” Karel De Gucht, the European trade commissioner, said in Brussels yesterday.
Despite the recent flooding, Thailand is one of the strong economies with which the EU would like to start boosting not only trade, but also investment and cooperation in many areas, he said.
“I’m expected to meet with the trade minister of Thailand to discuss the issue during next week’s meeting of the World Trade Organisation in Geneva,” he said.
The WTO summit will be held from December 15-17 during the eighth WTO Ministerial Conference.
De Gucht and Commerce Minister Kittiratt Na-Ranong are expected to hold talks on the sidelines of the meeting.
Since Asia will continue to play a key role as the global economic engine, the EU must strengthen ties with countries in Asia, particularly in Asean, in terms of trade and other tangible forms of cooperation, De Gucht said.
According to a study by the EU, by 2015, 90 per cent of economic growth will be generated outside Europe, so it will focus on Asia and South Africa.
The EU would like to open trade with Asean countries and expects that after attaining comprehensive economic cooperation with each country, the bilateral pacts can be combined and cover the whole Asean region in the future.
“We are mutual economies, relying on each other for one-third of trade. It’s necessary that we [the EU and Asean] should tie up trade cooperation under the free-trade agreement in order to ensure mutual benefits and growth for both regions,” he said.
The EU is negotiating bilateral FTAs with Singapore and Malaysia. It is expected to reach the final round of talks with Singapore early next year, while concluding talks with Malaysia before the end of 2012.
After wrapping up the talks, the bilateral pacts are expected to be enforced in a couple years, as it will take about two or three years to translate the documents into 23 languages and work on the details of the agreements.
Other Asean countries that the EU wants to have bilateral talks with are Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines. It has already scoped out the talks with some of them and expects to start negotiations soon.
Thailand has formed a working group with interested industries to determine whether the country should start talks with the EU. It is now waiting for the government’s mandate and Parliament’s approval for launching the negotiations.
However, some details still need to be fleshed out for the bilateral negotiations between Thailand and the EU, as the parties are at different stages of development.
Intellectual property, service liberalisation and tariff reductions on alcoholic beverage are especially sensitive issues for Thailand.
The EU will reform its Generalised System of Preferences in 2014, which is expected to cut the number of countries that currently benefit from the privileges to 80 from 176.
Thailand is one of the countries that could lose privileges since its economy is now stronger. The country should carefully consider launching trade talks with the EU to secure export privileges to that market, De Gucht said.