Malaysia, Thailand Working Hard To Increase Trade Volume, Says Thai Envoy

By Sharifah Pirdaus Syed Ali PETALING JAYA (Selangor, Malaysia), Aug 20 (Bernama) -- Malaysia and Thailand are working hard to increase trade volume to US$30 billion (US$1 = RM4.01) by 2017 from US$22 billion in 2015. Its Ambassador to Malaysia, Damrong Kraikruan, said Malaysia was Thailand's fourth largest trading partner and both countries were working by all means, either bilaterally or within ASEAN, to increase the trade volume. "With the current slowing economic situation and uncertainties in the global market, demand in both countries was also weaker making it a bit challenging for us to achieve the target. "The commitments from both countries are high. If it does not happen in 2017, it will still happen two to three years later," he told Bernama at the launch of Mini Thailand Week here Friday. To-date bilateral trade was in Malaysia's favour, he said, with Malaysia registering a surplus of about US$700 million for over three consecutive years. Damrong said among Thailand's top exports to Malaysia were petroleum, car parts, food products, computer parts and electrical appliances. "To further boost the trade commitment, the two countries signed a memorandum of understanding at end-2015 to facilitate the use of baht and ringgit (Thailand and Malaysian currencies, respectively) for trade and financial transactions. "This is the first-ever bilateral currency exchange pact within ASEAN. It has been implemented since July this year," he said. Moving forward, he said, the two countries should continue to improve the facilities to increase trade, like having better infrastructure by road, rail, sea and air, address the congestion issue at the border as well as increase the trade office promotion activities. He said the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) and ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) had also continued to be the contributing factors to the increase in trade in the ASEAN countries of which one-third of the trade was within the region. "However, there are room for improvements for AEC and AFTA especially on the non-tariff barriers whereby the ASEAN member countries need to look into and step up efforts in tackling those issues arising on the barriers," he said. Damrong said it would also be good for other ASEAN countries if they could follow suit in having bilateral currency exchange pacts rather than using the third-party currency like the US dollar for trade to mitigate the impact of currency fluctuations. --BERNAMA