India and Thailand on Thursday signed a landmark free trade agreement and four other accords for enhancing cooperation in agriculture, tourism and science.

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The FTA will provide a free trade area in goods to begin by year 2010 and in services and investment from 2006.

The other agreements signed were MoU on agricultural cooperation, MoU on tourism cooperation, agreement on visa exemption for diplomatic and official passport holders and programme of cooperation in biotechnology.

The five agreements were signed in the presence of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his Thai counterpart Thaksin Shinawatara, in Bangkok.

Vajpayee, accompanied by a high-powered delegation of officials and businessmen, is the first Indian premier to visit Thailand in a decade.

Agreement has been reached on a list of products which would receive tariff free entry on a fast track basis from March 2004. These have been described as early harvest scheme items.

The agreement also contains a provision regarding emergency measures to protect domestic producers in case of sudden surges in imports. No agreement was reached on the modalities of defining the rules of origin. It will be negotiated later.

The FTA which also seeks to trim trade tariffs in the next seven years was signed by Commerce Minister Arun Jaitley and his Thai counterpart.

The MoU on agricultural cooperation provides for joint activities between the two states, covering agricultural and forestry research, biotechnology soil and water conservation, watershed management, land use planning and horticulture.

It creates a joint working group to implement the agreement, which will meet every two years to review progress in bilateral cooperation. The agreement will be valid for five years from the date of signing.

The agreement on tourism aims to create conditions for long-term bilateral cooperation in the sector through reciprocal establishment of representative offices of the tourism department of the two countries.

Another agreement on visa free travel was also initialed. The fifth agreement on cooperation in biotechnology envisages the establishment of an India-Thailand biotechnology panel for formulation, approval, monitoring and review of action plans.

The agreement identifies specific areas for cooperation, including genomics of shrimp and cassava, study of infectious diseases and setting up of a biotechnology incubation centre.