The Economic Times

Friday, October 10, 2003

India and Thailand sign FTA

PTI

BANGKOK: India and Thailand on Thursday signed a landmark free trade
agreement (FTA) and four other accords for enhancing cooperation in
agriculture, tourism and science.

The FTA will provide a free trade area in goods to begin by year 2010 and in
services and investment from 2006. The other agreements signed were an MoU
on agricultural cooperation, an MoU on tourism cooperation, agreement on
visa exemption for diplomatic and official passport holders and programme of
cooperation on biotechnology.

The five agreements were signed in the presence of Prime Minister A B
Vajpayee and his Thai counterpart Thaksin Shinawatara.

An agreement has been reached on a list of products which would receive
tariff free entry on a fast-track basis from March 2004. These have been
described as early harvest scheme (EHS) items.

The agreement also contains a provision regarding emergency measures to
protect domestic producers in case of sudden surges in imports. No agreement
was reached on the modalities of defining rules of origin. It will be
negotiated later.

The FTA which also seeks to trim trade tariffs in the next seven years was
signed by commerce minister Arun Jaitley and his Thai counterpart.

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