The Bhutanese Leading the way.
One of the main features of the Bhutan-Thailand bilateral trade agreement is to establish a joint trade committee that will be co-chaired by the commerce minister of the Government of the Kingdom of Thailand and the economic affairs minister of the Royal Government of Bhutan.
This was discussed during the two-day second Bhutan-Thailand consultation meeting on bilateral trade agreement held in Phuket, Thailand early last week.
The bilateral “Trade and Economic Cooperation Agreement” envisages taking appropriate measures to promote, facilitate, and develop trade and economic cooperation between the two countries.
The function of the Joint Trade Committee would be to review the implementation of the agreement, explore opportunities for increasing and diversifying mutual trade and economic relations between the two countries, and to consider and adopt appropriate measures for the development of a dynamic bilateral trade.
The bilateral trade and economic cooperation agreement is expected to formalize the bilateral trading arrangement and further enhance trade and investment between two countries.
During the meeting, the scope of the agreement was extended to cover a wider area of mutually beneficial cooperation.
Both sides reaffirmed that the two kingdoms enjoyed friendly and close relationship and believed that the bilateral trade and economic cooperation agreement would contribute to additional strengthening of the existing bilateral relations.
The bilateral trade agreement with Thailand was envisioned in Article 1 of the “Comprehensive Framework Agreement for Cooperation between the Kingdom of Bhutan and Kingdom of Thailand” signed on July 30, 2004.
The Bhutanese delegation for the meeting was led by MoEA’s joint secretary, Sonam P. Wangdi and the Thai delegation led by Piramol Charoenpao. She is the director general, department of trade negotiations (DTN), ministry of commerce, Government of the Kingdom of Thailand.
