Friendly advice to the Europeans This is a friendly advice to the Europeans who have long been an important trade and investment partner of Thailand, but who have also in recent years been going through severe economic hardship at home. On our side, it is very clear that we Thais enjoy European goods and services when we can afford them. We enjoy your cars, electrical appliances, industrial machineries, geographically-indicated farm products, and whisky and wines. We send our children to study in your schools and colleges so that they become world-class engineers and architects, economists and business administrators, and masters of music and performances. We travel to your countries to experience for ourselves, to see with our own eyes, the glory and beauty of Europe, built and accumulated over the centuries. Your investments in Thailand introducing modern trade facilities, financial services, and logistics have made the conduct of our daily lives and businesses more efficient and pleasurable. So there is no question that we do not have anything against you. And if you ask your citizens who visit Thailand as tourists, long-stay vacationers, and business executives by the millions each year, you will likely find that they enjoy our country very much, too. This is how best we should continue to conduct our relations. It would be a lost opportunity for Thailand, and even more for Europe, if you will let yourselves be strayed off course in misguided reaction to our pursuit to restore to this country once and for all political stability, law and order, solid economic foundation, and a sense of national unity. Let us tell you why. Asia-Pacific is going to continue to be the growth region of the world going forward. And it is already a region of great strategic importance today. Major policy questions in countries like the US and even the EU are being answered in response to these facts. The China question will continue to dominate strategic policy consideration in the US, and ASEAN countries will have an important role to play in that. You Europeans have confirmed this understanding with your policy reversal in Myanmar yourselves. And if the Aung San Suu Kyi Series of Talk Shows in Europe is considered a sufficient condition to engage yourselves with Myanmar, then obviously, you will be able to find even more and better reasons to continue to engage Thailand. As your people are suffering economic hardships at home and your businesses are losing competitiveness abroad, you can ill-afford philosophical aspirations that do not bring material improvements to your economic situations. Your economies are not growing, your people are going without jobs, and your governments can not spend to help your people. External trade is the avenue that you need to bring prosperity to Europe. But in Thailand, and other countries, your businesses have been losing competiveness for over a decade. While you were immersing yourselves with multilateral trade negotiations, you decided to turn a blind eye to the facts that countries were negotiating and concluding FTA agreements. And today your businesses are paying for it, being priced out of the markets in a broad range of products. They are losing market shares to the Australians, the New Zealanders, the Japanese, and the Chinese. This is what is happening in the Thai market. And so you are today having to catch up with the rest of the world through an EU-Thailand FTA negotiation. This FTA agreement that will help restoring to European businesses equivalent terms of entry in to the Thai market, after years of having to pay higher duty rates for their products than most of their competitors, cannot wait. Your businesses cannot wait. Your economies cannot wait. European businesses are losing business each day. European market share is shrinking each day. Thai consumers are developing tastes for lower-priced alternatives having similar quality to European products each day. Europe cannot afford to waste two or three or five years to paused negotiations, and watch the competition beating European businesses because of your misguided policy reaction. So instead of putting forth your philosophical aspirations ahead of your genuine economic needs, why don’t you follow your economic interests clearly and honestly. Following your own economic interests will be easily understood by your own citizens and the Thai people. It will allow this relationship to move forward as it should, bringing prosperity to the Europe and Thailand. It will save you wasted time, energy, and frustration. And it will be realistic. Your citizens who have chosen Thailand as their preferred holiday destination, and even the place to live out the rest of their lives, are as clear a message as any that this country, in spite of its imperfections, is quite a nice place and you can do much worse in other places in the world. Hear your citizens. Follow their lead. Trust your people. Somkiat Osotsapa Bangkok, Thailand 25/6/1014
Posted on: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 01:49:28 +0000
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