Thailand and Malaysia agree on $30 bn trade goal by 2018

To expand trade between the two countries, measures would be taken to lower trade barriers via the easing of some regulations and to facilitate cross-border trade.

A Joint Thai-Malaysia Border Trade Committee has been set up to implement the policy.

A trade festival will be hosted by the two countries each year.

Malaysia was asked to buy more Thai rice and allow for the grain to be shipped to Malaysia via road, not just by water transport.

Thai rice imports

"Malaysia has acknowledged our request to increase imports of Thai rice and they promised that they will provide us with an answer soon," Weerachon Sukhondha-patipak, a deputy government spokesman, said after the Cabinet meeting yesterday.

Malaysia clarified the criteria that are lacking and are required for Thailand to meet to export more products to Malaysia while the Thai government revealed the industries that will be concentrated in the special economic zone that will be set up at Sadao in the border province of Songkhla.

The promoted businesses are value-added rubber products, furniture, automobile parts, apparel, processed seafood, Halal food and industrial estates.

Malaysia is Thailand’s fourth-largest trading partner globally and the largest in Asean. Border trade accounts for 60 per cent of the total between the two countries.

The Cabinet also approved the amendments to cross-border regulations, so Thailand will begin to allow Cambodian workers with a border pass to stay for up to 30 days within a province instead of a district at the border.

Laotians with a border |pass will also be allowed to |work in the Thailand via the "back and forth" model.

The time they can stay here will be extended from three days and two nights to seven to 15 days, he added.