DEPUTY Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak heads to China on Friday December 9 to preside over a key meeting together with Chinese State Councilor Wang Yong and will also be holding talks to Chinese businessmen and investors, Thai News Agency said today.
Commerce Minister Apiradee Tantraporn said that the fifth Meeting of the Joint Committee on Trade, Investment and Economic Cooperation between Thailand and China or JC will focus on strengthening Thai-Chinese business ties and determine the direction of economic cooperation in various areas.
Mr Apiradee added that Thai and Chinese governments’ economic development plans are starting to move in the same direction and the two nations are stressing linking in various ways such as promoting research, innovation and information communications technology.
The two countries are also jointly pushing various policies both are interested in so as to share the benefits especially China’s One-Belt-One-Road policy which Thailand is willing to support with is its economic strongpoints and geographical location
According to Wikipedia, the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-century Maritime Silk Road, also known as The Belt and Road (abbreviated B&R), One- Belt-One-Road (abbreviated OBOR) Initiative is a development strategy and framework, proposed by Chinese paramount leader Xi Jinping that focuses on connectivity and cooperation among countries primarily between China and the rest of Eurasia.
This consists of two main components, the land-based “Silk Road Economic Belt” (SREB) and oceangoing “Maritime Silk Road” (MSR). The strategy underlines China’s push to take a bigger role in global affairs, and its need for priority capacity cooperation in areas such as steel manufacturing.
The Thai Commerce Ministry will also be signing an agreement with Alibaba Group to expand cooperation in promoting and developing the potential of Thai SMEs to do better business online and stably step into the digital economy with this matching Thailand 4.0 policy.
During 2nd Asia Coordination Dialogue (ACD) in Bangkok in October Prime Minister Gen Prayuth Chan-o-cha met Alibaba founder and CEO Jack Ma who later said that his company was going to work with the Thai government to help small business in the country develop and also boost e-payment.
China is currently Thailand’s number one trading partner as it is Thailand’s second biggest export market but the biggest source of imports. Meanwhile Thailand is China’s 13th trading partner being its12th export market and 10th import source in 2015.
The value of the trade between the two countries totaled 65 billion US dollars in 2015 while during the first ten months of this year this reached 54 billion US dollars.
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Top: DEPUTY Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak. Photo: Thai News Agency
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