Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, right, greets Thailand's Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin during the leaders' arrival at the ASEAN-Australia Special Summit, in Melbourne, Australia March 5, 2024 (Photo: Reuters)Bangkok (VNA)– Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin has met with leaders and representatives of enterprises of Australia andleaders of ASEAN member states at the ongoing 2024 ASEAN-Australia SpecialSummit in Melbourne to boost investment cooperation of Thailand withAustralia and other countries in the region.
In his talks with hisAustralian counterpart Anthony Albanese on March 5, PM Sretthaexpressed Thailand's readiness to promote trade, investment, tourism, andbilateral cooperation on technology and innovation under the Joint Declarationon the Strategic Partnership between the two countries.
Regarding theThailand-Australia Free Trade Agreement (FTA), which has boosted bilateraltrade growth by 186%, Srettha noted that efforts will be made to improve theagreement in line with the changing circumstances.
The Thai PM also metwith leaders of some of Australia's leading businesses such as Fortescue, aglobal green energy and metals mining company that also makes electric vehiclebatteries; and Linfox, Asia Pacific's largest private logistics company, whichhas had regional offices in Bangkok since 1993.
Within the frameworkof the summit, the PM discussed a series of bilateral projects with his Laocounterpart Sonexay Siphandone.
On his personal socialmedia account, Srettha said the project to build a new railway bridge over the MekongRiver is being studied to facilitate traffic between Thailand and Laos, whilethe fifth Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge will open to traffic this year.
The construction ofthe road connecting Thailand's Bueng Kan province with Laos's Bolikhamsaiprovince is nearly complete. He also askedLao Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone to speed up the identification of theJoint Control Area (CCA) location to reduce transportation costs between thetwo countries.
Earlier, PM Srettha also held talks with his Malaysian counterpart Anwar Ibrahim anddiscussed tourism coo⛦peration under the "six countries, one destination"initiative to promote joint tourism between Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand,V🐬ietnam, and Malaysia/.
