Thai Private Sector Welcomes Inclusion of Beijing.

Nov. 7--The Thai private sector is welcoming the planned establishment of an Asean-China free-trade area, saying it would improve the bargaining power of Asean countries in the global community.

Integration would help expand trade and investment activities of Asean states to other regions in addition to increasing their competitiveness, said Kiat Sittheeamorn, deputy secretary-general of the Board of Trade.

Mr Kiat, who has helped advise the Thai government on an integrated trading and investment regime between Asean and East Asia, said how quickly Asean-China integration could be completed would depend on political will.

As China's low labour costs gave the country a competitive advantage in certain industries, Thailand should help domestic producers by cutting import tariffs to ease production costs.

The Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation forum envisages full trade liberalisation among its developed-country members by 2010, with developing countries opening their markets fully by 2020.

Within Southeast Asia, several thousand trade categories have already had their tariffs cut under the Asean Free Trade Area (Afta), which calls for full liberalisation by 2003.

Asean leaders expect that integrating China into a free-trade area is around 10 years away.