On 6 July 2021, H.E. Ms. Pattarat Hongtong, Ambassador of Thailand to India, delivered a remark at 1^st Indo Pacific Business Forum, organized through Zoom platform by the Confederation of Indian Industries from  6 – 9 July 2021. The summit’s main theme is to ‘develop roadmap for shared prosperity, and aimed to become a platform for high level officials from governments and businesses to share ideas on how to promote economic opportunities among the countries of the Indo-Pacific, including on trade and investment and capacity building for businesses and entrepreneurs. The Summit has attracted over 2,500 participants comprising of Ministers with economic portfolios from all over the region, Ambassadors, industry and business leaders, and was graced during the inaugural session by Honourable External Affairs Minister of India, Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, and by the Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal during the Special Plenary

          On this occasion, H.E. the Ambassador have delivered her remarks during the session themed “Promoting Trade Facilitation in the Indo-Pacific through Improved Cross Border Linkages and Trade Infrastructure”, stressing the importance of two factors for the purpose of maintaining economic and trade growth in the Indo-Pacific during the COVID-19 pandemic. These are (1) public-sector led facilitation of trade and (2) measures instigated with an aim to reduce the cost of trade. The former requires the public sector to ‘think different’, be imaginative, and employ new technology into policy making to help entrepreneurs and investors mitigate the impact of the pandemic. In this regard, H.E. the Ambassador has shared innovative policies by the Ministry of Commerce of Thailand, Royal Thai Embassy in New Delhi, and the Office of Commercials Affairs in New Delhi, including the establishment of online communication platform for entrepreneurs wishing to seek counsel with government authorities, the hosting of online seminars and training sessions to upgrade and reskill Thai exporters, the shifting of traditional trade roadshows and business matching events into hybrid and virtual sessions, and the recent launch of the campaign ‘Thailand Deliver With Safety’ to overhauling food supply chain on the basis of safety and hygiene. On reduction of trade cost, H.E. the Ambassador shared Thailand’s vision of the importance of having resilient hardware infrastructures, both land and sea, including the realization of the India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway Project, the signing of the Greater Mekong Subregion’s Motor Vehicle Agreement and the BIMSTEC’s Master Plan on Transport Connectivity. On sea, the realization of port linkages between Thailand’s Ranong Port with Kolkata’s, Chennai’s and Visakhapatnum’s in India.