Representatives from the United States and Thai governments have concluded the sixth round of negotiations towards a bilateral Free Trade Agreement, which Assistant US Trade Representative Barbara Weisel hopes can be completed on schedule by the spring of this year.
Under the bilateral deal, tariffs will be abolished on goods and services traded between the United States and Thailand. The United States already buys more Thai products than any country in the world and the US government believes that the FTA’s new market access will boost these trade figures still further in the future.
According to Weisel, once the FTA is in place, no other country will have better access to the US market.
"We continue to believe that concluding this FTA is important for both the United States and Thailand and that it will bring a wide range of benefits to both sides," Weisel commented.
"Without such an FTA, Thailand’s exporters will lose the competitive advantage they would gain against some of their fiercest competitors in the region," she added.
A second benefit of the FTA is that it will liberalize the Thai services sector, including telecommunications, financial services, distribution, and other sectors, and strengthen the protection of intellectual property.
Thailand has stated its intention to become a regional life sciences hub, and Weisel added that the FTA could help further develop this sector, creating hundreds of jobs in an important area in which Thailand has some real comparative advantages.
Weisel observed that the FTA between the United States and Jordan has resulted in rapid expansion of the Middle Eastern country's clinical research sector, with Jordanian firms now the biggest pharmaceutical exporters in their region.
"This and other liberalization resulting from the FTA has generated tens of thousands of new jobs in Jordan," she noted.
The United States and Thailand already have a strong trade and investment relationship, with almost $28 billion in trade last year. US foreign direct investment in Thailand totalled $7.7 billion.
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