Bimstec trade talks at critical juncture
Thailand will review trade negotiations with the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooper-ation (Bimstec) if the talks this week become bogged down, Chana Kanaratanadilok, deputy director-general of the Trade Negotiations Department, said on Friday.
Bimstec members are meeting in Burma to expedite free-trade talks. The key agenda is to push tariffs of trade in goods down to zero and promote investment growth among members. However, if members, particularly India, show a lack of interest in pushing for a free-trade area under Bimstec, Thailand will need to ask for the government's mandate to proceed with the talks. "The department will need to ask for Commerce Minister Krirkkrai Jirapaet and the Cabinet's decision if the discussion makes no progress," Chana said. The Bimstec talks have been stuck on the issues of rules of origin and sensitive lists. India has proposed too many conditions on the rules-of-origin issue. As a result, other members have followed India's footsteps. India, the leading country in Bimstec, also included a large number of products on its sensitive lists. "This practice has made opening free trade in goods difficult to achieve," Chana said. Chana said the free-trade talks' objective is to bring down or eliminate tariffs and obstacles on trade. However, the continuous conditions of others members will make for a failure to reach agreement. Bimstec was formed by Bangladesh, India, Burma, Sri Lanka and Thailand in 1997 to enhance economic cooperation and boost trade between South and Southeast Asia. In 2003, Bhutan and Nepal also joined the group. After that, the group agreed to integrate free trade and investment promotion. So far, Bimstec has reached cooperation to launch a Bimstec Business Travel Card and an exchange of information to control bird-flu outbreaks. Six sectors have been identified for cooperation: trade and investment, technology, transportation, energy, tourism and fisheries. But the group has made very slow progress in mapping out an actual plan of action to achieve these goals. Chana noted that none of the plans had yielded any significant results for the member economies. Meanwhile, Thailand and India will also hold bilateral trade talks this year to push the pact towards more progress. Thailand wants to see movement on the bilateral talks instead of focusing on the early-harvest agreement covering 82 product items since September 2004.
Petchanet Pratruangkrai
The Nation
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