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Jun 13, 2009, 3:20 GMT

Thailand mulls waiver of steel tariffs for Japan's auto makers

Bangkok - In a bid to assist 15 Japanese auto manufacturers based in the kingdom, Thailand's finance minister has proposed waiving import tariffs on steel brought in for vehicle production by Japanese firms, media reports said Saturday. Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij said the waiver would fall under the Japan-Thailand Economic Partnership Agremeent (Jtepa), a partial free-trade agreement inked recently. 'Now any company that imports steel for auto production will get the privilege,' Korn told The Nation newspaper. The minister, however, will need cabinet approval before the waiver goes into effect. Japanese automobile makers control the lion's share of Thailand's vehicle and motorcycle market, and many have set up manufacturing bases in the kingdom to target the export market, especially the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), which enjoys reduced tariffs. Thailand is also a manufacturing and assembly base for US auto firms GM and Ford, and Germany's BMW and Mercedes Benz. Korn is also pushing to offer loans to small and medium-sized Japanese-Thai joint venture companies from the state-run SME Bank, on the condition that they are majority Thai-owned. SME Bank has limited lending to wholly Thai-owned small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the past. Some 7,000 Japanese-owned SMEs operating in Thailand have been hard hit by the global financial crisis and are in need of domestic financing. Japan is ranked the largest investor in Thailand.

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