Thai PM to visit Europe next month

BANGKOK, February 18 (TNA) - Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra will visit Europe next month, when she will hold talks with European authorities on launching a free trade area (FTA) between Thailand and the 27-member European Union (EU). Commerce Minister Boonsong Teriyapirom called a meeting of the Thai Chamber of Commerce in Bangkok on Monday to discuss a negotiation framework for the planned Thai-EU FTA, before Premier Yingluck's visit to Europe, scheduled for March 4-6, 2013, during which Thailand and the EU will have their official FTA negotiation. Boonsong told journalists that the Thai government and private agencies agreed at the meeting to jointly form two committees, chaired by the permanent secretary for commerce and sponsored by his ministry's export promotion fund, to prepare for the Thai-EU FTA talks, acknowledging that the two new panels comprise an ad hoc public, private and civil committee to sustain information exchange regarding the planned Thai-EU FTA and the other to facilitate trade with the private sector. The commerce minister insisted that the easing European debt crisis should not have any impact on the upcoming Thai-EU FTA negotiation, assessing that the negotiation should do more good than harm to Thailand and should make up for the benefits under the US Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), which Thailand is likely to lose at the end of next year. (TNA)