Trade Policy in Thailand: Pursuing a Dual Track Approach

This paper aims to review and evaluate the current trade policy of Thailand after the financial crisis, which is being pursued by the current administration. The paper summarizes the pre- and post-crisis trade policy of Thailand, sectoral trade policies, existing Uruguay Round and AFTA commitments, and institutional setting for trade policy formulation, and also discusses the recent engagements of Thailand in bilateral, regional, and multilateral fora with particular focus on her positions on the key negotiation issues in the current round of multilateral negotiations. The paper argues that having the opportunity to discuss some things more in detail under FTAs has helped clarify and crystallize some negotiating issues for Thailand. If the experience of negotiating FTAs in the past year can be of any indication on her future positions at the WTO, it is likely that Thailand will fight hard for reform on agriculture and anti-dumping, resist strongly on intellectual property rights and all-encompassing competition policy but is likely to be more accommodative on investment and possibly environment, but not labour standards.