Predictions are that trade between India and Thailand could more than double by 2014 if a proposed Free Trade Agreement (FTA) is signed later this year.
“Our aim is to finalise the FTA by the middle of this year and this will lead two-way trade to double to more than US$14bn by 2014,” Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said on a recent visit to New Delhi.
According to a report by the Bangkok Post, the accord has been in the pipeline for the last seven years. However, Shinawatra’s high profile visit to India recently was fuelling optimism in the business community a deal could be brokered later this year, the newspaper reported.
Shinawatra said during the trip Thailand would be an important stepping-stone for India to increase trade with other South East Asian nations.
This would be aided in part by the completion of the Dawei port project in Myanmar. Shipments from India landed at the port could be distributed to Thailand and further afield to China and other South East Asian countries, she added.
India’s commerce minister Anand Sharma said bilateral trade between India and Association of South East Asian Nation member countries had already risen past US$50bn and was expected to exceed US$75bn.
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