China, Thailand drive forward economic partnership

BEIJING, December 9 (TNA) - China and Thailand have agreed on jointly moving forward their strategic economic partnership, focused on, among others, expanding regional connectivity and setting a common target on doubling bilateral trade to about 120 billion US dollars by 2020. Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak, who is leading a Thai delegation to visit China this week, told TNA of the agreement on Friday after the 5th Meeting of the Joint Committee on Trade, Investment and Economic Cooperation between China and Thailand (JC), held in Beijing. Somkid, who oversees economic affairs, noted that the agreement has been included in five documents inked by the Chinese and the Thai governments at the 5th China-Thailand JC, covering bilateral cooperation in various areas in accordance with national economic development policies of both allied countries. For trade and investment cooperation, Somkid stressed, both China and Thailand agreed on doubling their two-way trade to about 120 billion US dollars by 2020, while also extending their five-year joint economic development plan and a joint action plan which are focused on major areas of expanding transport and logistics infrastructure projects, 10-targeted industrial clusters, digital, science and technology, innovations and energy. According to the deputy premier, Thailand's strategic location at a center of the region supports the bilateral cooperation between Beijing and Bangkok and the expanding regional connectivity would result in growing trade and investment. Besides, the two sides agreed on speeding up railway cooperation, covering China's construction of new rail tracks, first linking between Bangkok and Nong Khai (หนองคาย) Province in the Thai Northeast, and on strengthening cooperation in inspections and standards of farm produce sanitary and facilitations in agricultral trade through the issuance of e-certificates. The Thai deputy premier stated that Beijing and Bangkok also agreed on promoting and supporting the expanding use of the Chinese yuan for business transactions of both countries, from only those limited in China's southern Yunnan Province currently, through the direct quotation between the Chinese Yuan and the Thai baht and more lending funds from Chinese financial institutes. The two sides agreed as well on other cooperation projects in line with their policies on similar connectivity objectives, including those under China's One-Belt One-Road, One Belt One Ray and Internet Plus Plans and Thailand's initiatives on the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) development, the digital economy transformation and the Thailand 4.0 plans. The Thai government plans to develop the Thai Kingdom to become a leading digital hub, or e-hub, in the ASEAN Community (AC) through expanding cooperation to other countries in the region, namely Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Vietnam, known as the CLMV group, as well as cooperation with China, India and other countries in South Asia as the integrated 10-member ASEAN bloc. (TNA)