{"id":1025,"date":"2023-08-21T13:02:39","date_gmt":"2023-08-21T11:02:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.esf.be\/new\/?page_id=1025"},"modified":"2025-06-18T10:47:57","modified_gmt":"2025-06-18T08:47:57","slug":"eu-thailand","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.esf.be\/new\/bilateral-negotiations\/eu-ongoing-bilateral-negotiations\/eu-asean-countries\/eu-thailand\/","title":{"rendered":"EU-Thailand"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.esf.be\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/EU-Thailand-FTA-ESF-Position-Paper-on-Services-industries-priorities-March-2023-Final.pdf\">ESF Position Paper on EU-Thailand FTA negotiations<\/a> \u2013 28 March 2023)(<a href=\"https:\/\/www.esf.be\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Importance-of-Trade-in-Services-between-the-EU-and-Thailand-06-2025.pdf\">EU-Thailand Trade in Services Statistics<\/a> &#8211; June 2025)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>ESF meeting with Thai Ambassador &amp; FTA Negotiators (Office of trade attach\u00e9 \u2013 Royal Embassy of Thailand\u2013 Press Club \u2013 30 October 23)\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>ESF Mission to Thailand from 13-16 November 2023 (see <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esf.be\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/ESF-Trip-to-Thailand-13-16-November-2023-Final-Programme.docx\">programme<\/a>)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>ESF Priorities for the EU-Thailand FTA negotiations<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>EU Bilateral trade relations with Thailand<\/strong><br>ESF contributed to the Questionnaire issued by the Directorate General for Trade in May 2013.<br>This Position Paper reiterate many aspects of that contribution, as not much has changed in<br>Thailand for European services providers since. The negotiations at that time started well and<br>negotiators had 4 rounds of talks, where services trade was discussed. On 22 May 2014<br>however, the Royal Thai Armed Forces, led by General Prayut Chan-o-cha, Commander of the<br>Royal Thai Army (RTA), launched a coup d&#8217;\u00e9tat against the caretaker government of Thailand,<br>following six months of political crisis. On 23 June 2014, the European Council decided to<br>suspend all official talks with Thailand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After assessing progressive improvements on the front of human rights and democratic rights,<br>that lead to elections in March 2019, at a meeting in Luxembourg on Monday 14th October<br>2019, EU Foreign Affairs ministers gave to the European Commission the green light to resume<br>negotiations on a trade deal with Thailand. \u201cThe Council also stresses the importance of taking<br>steps towards the resumption of negotiations on an ambitious and comprehensive Free Trade<br>Agreement,\u201d the Council announced in a Press Statement. ESF took note that the EU and<br>Thailand have signed a Partnership and Cooperation Agreement \u2013 the \u2018umbrella\u2019 political<br>agreement that is generally complemented by a trade pact \u2013 on 14th December 2022 in<br>Brussels on the side of the EU-ASEAN Summit. The Agreement was initialled on 2 September<br>2022 by the chief negotiators of the European Union and Thailand. The PCA will enter into<br>force once it has been ratified by the EU Member States and Thailand. The Agreement foresees<br>the provisional application upon completion of the necessary procedures by both parties.<br>ESF welcomes the announcement on 25th January 2023 that EU and Thailand, after an eight\u0002year political impasse, will \u201cstart consultations with a view to relaunching the EU-Thailand FTA<br>negotiations as soon as possible\u201d. The announcement was made after a meeting in Brussels of<br>Thailand\u2019s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Commerce, Jurin Laksanawisit with European<br>Commission Executive Vice president and Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis.<br>It is in this context that the European Services Forum is adopting this new Position Paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Thailand\u2019 economy in figures<\/strong><br>Thailand is the 22nd largest economy in the world and generated a GDP of \u20ac1,220 trillion1 in 2021. The population reached 71.6 million of inhabitants2 in 2021. The World Bank Report on<br>\u201cDoing Business\u201d3 is ranking Thailand on the ease of doing business as number 21 out of 190<br>in 2020, showing that the country is a real free market economy in the world but still have<br>room for improvement.<br>Thailand is the third largest market in Southeast Asia and growing. There is a large untapped<br>potential in this country in many services sectors, notably for the logistic services providers as<br>transit hub, particularly for goods destined for\/through Myanmar.<br>With bilateral trade in goods amounting to \u20ac35.52 billion in 2021, the EU is Thailand\u2019s fourth<br>largest trade partner (after China, Japan and the US), accounting for 7.5% of the country\u2019s total<br>trade. EU exports reached \u20ac13.32 billion, while imports amounted to \u20ac22.2 billion, making a<br>deficit of -\u20ac8.88 billion. Thailand is the EU\u2019s 26th largest trading partner worldwide for trade in<br>goods4. When considering trade in services, it first needs to be highlighted that Thailand\u2019s<br>economic share in services accounts only for 55.6% of the country\u2019s GDP and the sector only<br>employs 2 out of 4 jobs5. The services sector contribution to employment in Thailand is<br>significantly lower than those of advanced economies. The various few FTA that Thailand has<br>signed with other trading partners have not undertaken serious liberalisation in trade in<br>services in Thailand, except may be with Australia. ESF strongly believes that the EU-Thailand<br>FTA is a great opportunity to improve this situation of the services sectors in Thailand for the<br>benefit of both parties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br>In 2021, imports of services from Thailand to the EU was \u20ac2.5 billion while exports from the EU<br>to Thailand amounted to \u20ac5.65 billion, which makes an EU surplus of +\u20ac3.14 billion. Thailand<br>is the EU\u2019s 24th largest trading partner worldwide for trade in services. From 2009 to 2019,<br>Thailand used to have a surplus with the EU on trade in services, but the Covid pandemic has<br>dramatically changed the situation with less Thai export of tourism services. The near future<br>will see whether the balance will come back to its previous situation. Trade in services<br>represents only 18.6% of total trade between both partners, which is rather low compared to<br>other countries of similar economic development. In 2021, Services represent only 10% of total<br>Thailand exports to the EU, a very low level compared to the world average. 29.8% of EU total<br>exports are services. However, European services businesses still do encounter many<br>difficulties (when exporting or investing in Thailand) to access the market due to the numerous<br>barriers. Travel services represented 66% of Thailand exports of services to the EU in 2018,<br>accounting for \u20ac 4.3 billion (17% of total exports \u2013 goods &amp; services), which demonstrates that<br>Thailand\u2019s trade with the EU is very much dependant on tourism. The Covid19 pandemic with<br>the massive reduction of travel have had an enormous impact on this volume in 2020 and 2021,<br>going down to 23% (\u20ac575 million). In 2021, the biggest services sector of exports by the EU to<br>Thailand is \u201ctelecommunications &amp; IT services\u201d with 37.5% of exports, followed by transport<br>and \u201cother business services\u201d (see ESF statistics attached and here).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.esf.be\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Importance-of-Trade-in-Services-between-the-EU-and-Thailand-ESF-June-2023-2.pptx\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.esf.be\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Importance-of-Trade-in-Services-between-the-EU-and-Thailand-ESF-January-2023-2.jpg?resize=640%2C480&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1029\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.esf.be\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Importance-of-Trade-in-Services-between-the-EU-and-Thailand-ESF-January-2023-2.jpg?w=960&amp;ssl=1 960w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.esf.be\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Importance-of-Trade-in-Services-between-the-EU-and-Thailand-ESF-January-2023-2.jpg?resize=300%2C225&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.esf.be\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Importance-of-Trade-in-Services-between-the-EU-and-Thailand-ESF-January-2023-2.jpg?resize=768%2C576&amp;ssl=1 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ESF Priorities for the EU-Thailand FTA negotiations EU Bilateral trade relations with ThailandESF contributed to the Questionnaire issued by the Directorate General for Trade in May 2013.This Position Paper reiterate many aspects of that contribution, as not much has changed inThailand for European services providers since. The negotiations at that time started well andnegotiators had [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":160,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1025","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esf.be\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esf.be\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esf.be\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esf.be\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esf.be\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1025"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.esf.be\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1025\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1568,"href":"https:\/\/www.esf.be\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1025\/revisions\/1568"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esf.be\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esf.be\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}