Thailand Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva on Tuesday said India should grant visa on arrival to Thai tourists to boost two-way travel.
"We hope that we will be able to get visa on arrival which is something that will boost the number of visitors here," Thailand Prime
Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva told PTI after his meeting with industry leaders.
He said that though his country went through a difficult period last year because of political unrest, Thailand received a record
number of 16 million foreign visitors, including eight lakh Indians.
"It seems that tourism is fully recovered, it is actually continuing to grow at a very healthy pace. What we actually need now is to do further facilitation," he said.
Vejjajiva said that he had raised the issue of seeking visa on arrival for Thais with India's Foreign Minister S M Krishna and would also take up the same with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Last year, about 50,000 Thai citizens came to India mainly to visit Budhists sites.
In his meeting with members of leading business chambers - Ficci, Assocham and CII - it was emphasised that there should be direct flights between popular destinations of the two countries.
Inviting investments from Indian companies, the Thai Prime Minister said that his country has shortage of skilled manpower and would seek cooperation in this area with India.
"India is a workplace to some of those skills - language skills, IT skills that will help us to fill that gap...," he said.
Asked what holds the two countries to sign the comprehensive free trade agreement, expanding from the limited pact, Vijajjiva said that he expects the FTA to be inked some time later this year.
With Thailand due for elections in the next few months, its Parliament will be able to give its approval to the FTA only in the second half of this year.
Thailand has witnessed anti-government violent protest in the recent past. However, the situation has improved and its economy is
growing by a healthy 8 per cent.
Meanwhile, Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma said that India is committed to concluding negotiations with Thailand for a free trade pact by this year-end, a step which will help in doubling bilateral trade of USD 6 billion by 2014.
Vejjajiva said to maintain competitiveness, Thailand is considering a significant reduction in the corporate income tax.
Vejjajiva said Indian businessmen can explore opportunities in sectors like pharmaceutical, auto parts, chemicals, software and ICT.
"Our two countries have significant synergies in the pharmaceutical industry, a market that has been broached, but which remains largely untapped," he said.
Talking about dealing with the challenges of security, the Thai Prime Minister said that both the countries :"We have to face new challenges and new forms of security threats like piracy and terrorism... issues even related to climate change and natural disaster."
"I think these are the areas where cooperation can be expanded... Apart from strengthening the internal laws and enforcement
against sharing of intelligence information, particularly timely coordination is going to be the key and we hope that there will be agreements down the line on number of these issues," he said.
He further said that both the countries should also look at energy networks as well gas pipelines "where there is a great potential in the future".