First mini free trade deal pact with an Indian state will likely be with Telangana whose capital in southern India is Hyderabad which is home to HITEC city which encapsulates the vision Thailand has for knitting the technology sector into the kingdom’s economy particularly with the government’s ambitious Eastern Economic Corridor project in Rayong, Chonburi and Chachoengsao.
The Chairman of the Thai-Indian Business Association, Satish Sehgal, has welcomed moves by Thailand to pursue separate free trade agreements with states on the Indian subcontinent and predicts that the growing and increasingly affluent Indian middle class could be the main staple and the biggest spenders in a relaunched foreign tourism industry when the country is expected to reopen its borders at the end of 2021.
