$10bn in trade value in sight

       Thai-Indian trade is set to hit $10 billion next year - up from $6 billion in 2008 - stimulated by the recent Asean-India free trade agreement and an official visit to India by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva in November, said Kiat Sittheeamorn, president of the Thai Trade Representative Office.
       Both large and small Thai businesses can prosper in India, says Mr Kiat, addressing the India-Thai Business Association and India-Thai Chamber of Commerce at the Rembrandt Hotel.
       Asean-India trade has steadily risen from $37 billion to $48 billion last year and is now projected to soar to $60 billion in 2010, Mr Kiat told the joint meeting of India-Thai Business Association and India-Thai Chamber of Commerce at the Rembrandt Hotel.
       The obstacles hampering Asean-India trade, mainly tariffs, are forecast to be resolved by 2016, he said. Levies will be entirely lifted for most items while the rate on items considered sensitive will fall to 5%, he said.
       Asean aims to become a single market by 2015 and the FTA with India follows similar agreements with China, South Korea, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
       "What does it mean for businesspeople? It means having one of the largest blocs on this planet Earth. It's a bloc of almost half the population of the world and one-third of the world trade."
       The deputy prime minister will also be visiting India, in advance of Mr Abhisit in November, to reinforce the message that Thais really mean to do business with India.
       On a recent trip to Kolkata, Mr Kiat said he saw how successful some Thai companies had been in India. For instance, Italian-Thai Development Plc has built Kolkata's new airport, about half the size of Suvarnabhumi Airport and designed to handle 20 million passengers a year. The company has also secured other infrastructure work in India worth more than 50 billion rupees (about 40 billion baht).
       Another Thai giant, Charoen Pokphand Foods Plc, has set up a fisheries business in India and is looking into poultry farming and other ventures.
       Small businesses can also find success. A 20-square-metre massage spa in a Kolkata retail store has been so successfully operated by a Thai company called Thai Spa that it now has four outlets in the eastern Indian city. The 40 Thai masseuses working in these spas earn a good salary of $500 a month.
       Mr Kiat also discovered that Thai Hom Mali rice is being sold in Kolkata for as much as 250 baht a kilogramme.
       Tourism between the two countries has also shown a promising surge, with half a million Indian tourists now coming to Thailand each year while 60,000 Thais visit India. The lower figure for Thai travellers is in proportion with Thailand's population of 66 million, compared with India's 1.12 billion inhabitants.
       "One thing I discovered is that Thailand is now a popular destination for brides and grooms from India to travel to and have their ceremony. Each of them will travel with 600 invited guests, last year we had 30 couples getting married in Thailand," said Mr Kiat.
       But his visit also uncovered some hurdles for Thai businesses in India. A preferential system that taxes foreign firms more emerged as a leading issue. Foreign executives also pay more for domestic airline tickets.
       "We should work together and try to ensure that both countries have an investment-friendly atmosphere," he said.
       Thailand must also work to increase bilateral trade, he said. To rectify the key shortcoming of lacking a port on the Andaman Sea, Thailand will expedite its Southern Seaboard Programme, with building this much-needed port being the first priority.
       Regarding an Asean currency, Mr Kiat said the idea has been discussed but it was seen as extremely hard to implement because member countries are at different stages of development, particularly Indochinese nations.
       "If you look at the model of the EU, one important feature is that you must start by co-ordinating your macro-economic management and you must really respect it," he said. "But even in the EU they have ended up with a lot of capital transfers in order to help balance the pressure of a single currency."
       Mr Kiat forecast that some countries would shift from the US dollar after the world emerges from the current downturn. Many countries are buying special drawing rights from the IMF, with China having already pledged $50 billion and Japan around $60-70 billion.
       "China wishes to have its currency tradeable within the region as one of the anchor currencies, so I think that will be the phenomenon that we will witness. But a single currency is a long way away," he said.