Thai trade pact with Chile to be inked

Srirat Rastapana, director-general of the Trade Negotiations Department, yesterday said Thai and Chilean leaders would announce that the countries had wrapped up bilateral talks and a free-trade pact would be implemented next year.
 Twenty-one Apec leaders will witness the signing of the agreement, she said.
 The agreement will bring Thailand and Asean closer to Latin America, which will pave the way for not only trade, but also investment and service growth between two great continents, she added.
 “The bilateral pact is expected to boost two-way trade by 30 per cent annually after implementation. The agreement should be enforced early next year,” said Srirat.
 Thai rice will be the one of products with the highest growth potential under the seamless-trade pact, as Chile relies largely on rice imports. Thai rice exporters will have improved market access as Santiago will cut the import tariff on the goods over five years.
 The privileges that Chile will grant Thai rice are better than those available to Vietnam and China, she said.
 The Thailand-Chile Free Trade Agreement, which will become the second such arrangement with a Latin American country, after Peru, is expected to result in a big boost in two-way trade.
 Chile is Thailand’s third-largest trading partner in Latin America, after Brazil and Argentina. Trade between Thailand and Chile was worth US$874 million (Bt27.3 billion) last year, up by 6.8 per cent from 2010.
 Other exports with high potential are pick-up trucks, cement, electrical appliances, plastic pellets, rubber products, and canned and processed foods. Services and investment sectors with opportunities to grow in Chile are engineering, logistics, energy, mining and retailing.
 Expanding investment between the two partners will help eliminate distance barriers, facilitate logistics and cut transport costs in the long run.
 The negotiations with Santiago kicked off in April last year with the goal of laying down a comprehensive framework to liberalise trade in goods and services and to open up investment.
 Meanwhile, Thailand and New Zealand will announce progress on closer cooperation on liberalising services and investment during the Apec meeting.
 Weerachai Nopsuwanwong, the department’s deputy director-general, said the countries would accelerate the opening up of their markets for services and investment as a follow-up to the liberalisation of trade in goods five years ago.
 Thai-New Zealand cooperation will include trade facilitation on rules of origin certification and implementation of the national single window to promote trade in goods between the two sides, he said.