Thailand's and Malaysia's Cross-Regional FTA Initiatives

This chapter explores recent free trade agreement (FTA) initiatives by Thailand and Malaysia. It is shaped with reference to the concept of cross-regional trade agreements (CRTAs) developed by Mireya Solis and Saori Katada in the framework chapter of this book. It notes that each government, while remaining committed to the regional trade liberalization processes manifest in the APEC, the ASEAN AFTA, and the ASEAN plus Three (ATP) talks, has recently begun bilateral free trade negotiations. And each has reached beyond the Asian region to find negotiating partners. Their declared motive for going cross-regional was expectation of economic gain. This is evident in their efforts to secure access to the American, South Asian, Middle Eastern, and Australian markets and to attract investment from these economies. But this rationale must be qualified because the markets and investment sources of many Asian governments’ extra-regional partners are relatively small in Asian terms, and their trade and investment barriers are already amongst the lowest in the world. This is especially true of New Zealand and Chile, which are popular extra-regional partners for Asian governments.