Thailand Law Journal 2009 Fall Issue 2 Volume 12

Movement of natural person

The purpose of this part is this part is to facilitate the temporary business entry and erecting simplified and transparent immigration formalities for business persons in conduct of trade and investment between countries.⁷⁴ The interesting aspect in the Chapter 10 is the obligation that Thailand and Australia must grant, in respect that the business person satisfy its immigration criteria,  the right to business persons of each country for temporary entry for a period of up to 90 days.⁷⁵ In the same way, accord with Annex 8, both countries must grant temporary entry to an intra-corporate transferee or a contractual service supplier of the other countries who meets its criteria for the grant of an immigration formality unless there has been a breach of any of the conditions governing temporary entry, or an application for an extension of an immigration formality has been refused on such grounds of national security or public order.⁷⁶

Competition

There are the regulations of fair business competition in Chapter 12 of  TAFTA. These obligation is use to promote fair competition and limit the practice of anti competitive that adversely affects competition such as misuse of market power, anti competitive of horizontal and vertical arrangement between competitors ,and anti-competitive mergers and acquisitions.⁷⁷ Both countries have to ensure that all businesses are subject to such generic or relevant sectoral competition laws and are subject to  measurement of enforcement actions that against anti-competitive practices in their respective territories.⁷⁸

Intellectual property

TAFTA recognise the protection of intellectual property by observance of the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights⁷⁹ and any other multilateral agreement relating to intellectual property.⁸⁰ It obligates that each government must, on receipt of information or complaints, take measures to prevent the export of goods that infringe copyright or trade marks, according to its laws, regulations, or policies.⁸¹ Furthermore, TAFTA sets out the cooperation on enforcement of infringing intellectual property right. Thailand and Australia have to cooperate with a view of elimination of infringing intellectual property right by their respective laws, regulations, or policies.⁸² For example, the cooperation?s are the notification of contact points for the enforcement of intellectual property rights, the exchange of information concerning the infringement of intellectual property rights, policy dialogue on initiatives for the enforcement of intellectual property rights in multilateral and regional fora.⁸³

Thailand and Australia Free Trade Agreement has contained many obligations that lead to the facilitation and increase of cross boarder trade in goods and services that were restricted before this agreement is in enforce.  The international trade and investments between their territories will be accelerated by means of the reduction or elimination of custom tariff of trade and the promotion of trade in goods and service. And for clarifying the origin of goods, this Agreement contains the rules that can be used for classifying the origin of goods. Inevitably, the obligation of the Agreement will contribute to the impact on the both parties in the Agreement. Thailand and Australia, therefore, under the rule that they signed, have to be affect from the Agreement.

The impact of Thailand-Australia Free Trade Agreement
         
          After Thailand and Australia free trade Agreement has been enforced since 1 January 2005, its obligation contributes to the impact of both countries. The impact from TAFTA can be presented in the impact on tariff of both countries and on the regulation of foreign investment of each country. Moreover, the agreement?s implementation can be predicted to impact on the economy of both parties.

Impact on tariff of trade in goods

As mention above in chapter 2 of TATTA that the reduction has to occur upon the entry into force of TAFTA, there are obligations of reduction of tariff in number of goods. The tariff reduction should be focused at the important sector of goods such as agricultural, textile, and automotive goods.

Thailand has to adjust its tariff in agricultural product much more than Australia because Australian tariff of agricultural product was at or below 5.⁸⁴ When TAFTA was enforced, Australia will eliminate its agricultural to 0 percent. However, Thai tariff in agricultural product that is interested from Australian exporter is in high rate. It has maximum tariff rate at 60 percent and tariff rates quotas on 23 categories of agricultural goods which Thailand considers are sensitive, including certain dairy products such as milk powder, rice, sugar, a range of horticultural products, coffee and tea, pepper, raw silk, some oils, maize, soy beans and coconut products.⁸⁵

Thai tariff phasing modalities in agricultural product.

Source : DFAT

This article is published with the kind permission of Pornchai Wisuttisak, current PhD candidate, School of Business Law and Taxation, ASB, University of New South Wales, Master of Commercial Law, Macquarie University, BA, Political Science, Thammasat University, Thailand. This article originally appeared in the Thailand and Australia Free trade agreement (TAFTA): The advantage pace of foreign investment of both countries.