New govt in Thailand to push forward BIMSTEC FTA

Dhaka, Aug 6: The negotiations on proposed BIMSTEC Free Trade Agreement is likely to gain momentum after a new government is installed in Thailand after October 18 elections, the Thai Foreign Minister said here today.

The internal politics in Thailand apparently slowed down the current negotiations on the seven-nation Free Trade Agreement (FTA) under the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC).

''We would like to continue the discussion on BIMSTEC FTA. The Thailand government is waiting for elections, which will be held on October 18. The new government would push forward the process,'' Thai Foreign Minister Kantahi Suphamongkhon told newsmen after holding the bilateral talks with his Bangladeshi counterpart M Morshed Khan.

Both the Foreign Ministers will leave for India tomorrow to attend the ninth BIMSTEC ministerial meeting to be held in New Delhi on August 8-9.

The two-day meeting is expected to review the progress of the BIMSTEC FTA after a missed implementation target of July 1.

Mr Khan, who is the current chair of the economic bloc, will hand over the chair to India at the upcoming meeting.

The economic bloc, comprising seven South and Southeast Asian countries-Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bhutan and Nepal, would focus on some outstanding issues relating to the FTA.

The Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC) of senior officials and experts met in Colombo during July 25-29 to review the progress and observed that there were still many issues to resolve before implementing the FTA.

An official of the Bangladesh Commerce Ministry here said the TNC negotiations on the proposed free trade accord on trade in goods began afresh in July after a long stalemate since the first TNC meeting in February this year.

The next meeting of the TNC is scheduled to be held in September, but it is unlikely to set a fresh deadline to implement the FTA as huge tasks still remained to be resolved, he said.

The official said the member states have once exchanged their respective sensitive lists of products to keep them out of the Tariff liberalisation programme (TLP). The member countries are likely to review the lists and again exchange them after further review before the next TNC meeting.

TNC experts at their meeting last month also discussed key trading arrangements such as rules of origin and lists of items to be opened under the fast track of trade liberalisation programme.

Technical experts had discussions on a separate framework of dispute-settlement mechanism.

As for the FTA on trade in goods, the negotiators had agreed to open trade under 'fast track' and 'normal track' of trade liberalisation.

Under the fast track, the members have agreed to bring down tariffs to a range of zero to five per cent by June 2009 for developing countries and by June 2011 for least developed countries.

Under the normal track, however, they will follow a gradual tariff liberalisation programme. The developing countries will have to reduce tariff for each other by June 2010 and with least developed members by 2012.

While the compliance deadline for developing countries is June 30, 2015, for LDC members it is July 2017.

Besides, FTA on trade in goods, BIMSTEC members had agreed to kick-start free trade area for service trade and investment from July 2007.

UNI

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