Thailand has said it welcomes the suggestion for a bilateral approach to open up the services sector to Indian professionals and that it will be much faster and easier.
"We are open to the idea of bilateral negotiations with India on movement of Indian professionals into Thailand.
"In fact, such an approach will be much faster and easier," Thailand Deputy Permanent Secretary (Foreign Secretary) in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Surapit Kirtiputra told a group of visiting Indian journalists.
His comments came in reply to a question about concerns in India that the ten-member Association of Southeast Asian Countries does not seem keen on a liberalised services sector.
While it makes economic sense for countries like Thailand, where the English-speaking population is very small, to engage teachers from India to teach the language in that country rather than from any other part of the world, it is often argued that if it is a question of learning English, it would be better to go for those from the US, Britain or Australia even if this means more money.
Thailand officials maintain that from India's point of view not much headway was made in the September meeting of ASEAN and Indian trade minsters in Vietnam and it remains to be seen how the countries could meet the deadline of an agreement in services sector between the two sides by next year.
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