Thailand will commence negotiations with the European Free Trade Association countries on May 10 and plans to launch the first round of free-trade talks with South Korea later this year, The Nation reports.

The government hopes to use the free-trade agreements to boost trade and investment.

Department of Trade Negotiations director-general Apiradi Tantraporn said the market offered by European Free Trade Association (EFTA) members Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein was small compared with major economies like the US and Japan, with whom Thailand was also negotiating for free trade.

"But the trade talks with EFTA will be a challenging experience because they will prepares us to enter the European Union market, where the rules and regulations are almost identical," she said.

Thailand hopes to promote joint investments with the EFTA partners through the bilateral trade deal. Quite a few Thai investors already invest jointly in Norwegian and Icelandic canned seafood, she noted.

The duty-free agreement with the four European countries of EFTA will also enable Thai goods to enter the European Union, which still does not have a policy of negotiating bilateral free-trade pacts with other countries for the moment.

"They may be interested in negotiating with a regional grouping like Asean, but it will take years before they are ready. At the moment they have to place priority on integration with the Eastern European countries," Apiradi said.

Thailand has just signed free-trade agreements (FTAs) with Australia and New Zealand and is negotiating with eight other countries or regional groupings. They are Japan, the US, China, India, Peru, Bahrain, Bimstec (consisting of South Asian and Southeast Asian nations) and EFTA.

Asked if Thai trade envoys were engaged in too many trade talks at one time, Apiradi said: "Of course. We are exhausted. But it's good to negotiate several agreements all at once, because we can compare the details of each agreement through a matrix that we have made to give us the big picture."

Thai negotiators hope to wrap up the agreement with Japan by the middle of this year. A six-month documentation process should follow before the agreement takes effect next year, Apiradi said.

Thai-US talks may take longer. She predicted a possible conclusion in two years, following a start in Pattaya last month. "We haven't actually started the negotiating process yet. We've just discussed how to categorize our products into groups."

Trade negotiators meanwhile have not agreed with their Chinese counterparts on rules of origin applying to a Thailand-China FTA. Both are developing countries, so the WTO has allowed them to opt out of the FTA with regard to some products.

Apiradi said that about 5 per cent of all product lines could be exempted from the agreement, which it was aimed to implement in July this year.

The Thai and South Korean governments are soon to launch free trade talks. Apiradi said a date should be set later this year.

In its unprecedented pursuit of bilateral trade agreements, has the Thai government shifted its priorities away from the multilateral trade round under the World Trade Organization (WTO)?

Apiradi, formerly the Thai ambassador to the WTO in Geneva, said that while the WTO provided the universal trade rules, bilateral trade deals had provided Thailand with a better picture of the weaknesses and strengths of its industries. (Thai News Service)