Caretaker Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak announced yesterday that Thailand and France had reached an agreement to create a trade and investment road map, which aims to double bilateral trade to US$6.2 billion (Bt238 billion) within three years.

Somkid made the announcement after meeting the French international trade minister during his visit to France this week. He is also due to visit Turkey.

Thailand and France will establish a working committee to follow up progress on the plan and will hold an annual meeting at commerce-ministry level as part of the trade promotion activity.

He said both countries would jointly organise the September celebration of the 320th anniversary of Thailand and France's relations. As part of the event, Somkid will lead a group of 60 small and medium-sized enterprises - with a particular focus on the food and fashion industries - to France to seek business partners.

He added that France was interested in developing the Greater Mekong Sub-region for tourism and hoped to increase the collaboration between regional airlines and Air France as part of the plan to boost the number of tourists travelling between the two countries.

France is the third most popular tourist designation in Europe among Thai tourists.

During Somkid's visit, the Export Promotion Department and France's hypermarket operator Casino signed a memorandum of understanding to establish a joint venture to supply Thai products to Casino branches nationwide.

Somkid has ordered the Public Warehouse Organisation, the Commerce Ministry's marketing arm, to set up a subsidiary to oversee supplying food to the project.