Thai chicken for Swedish aircraft, was one of the ideas Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra throw up in the air during a Monday 13 September cabinet meeting planning his visit to Sweden 23 and 24 September.
“Yes, but it is just one idea of many how to make a barter deal the PM brought up,” explains a spokesman at the PM’s office to Scandasia. “Not until the talks take place in Sweden we will know more in detail what Thailand may propose.”
Sweden is pitching hard to sell the JAS Gripen jet fighter system to Thailand.
Will the Thai PM have a Gripen test ride in Sweden?
“I don’t think we have the time for it. He arrives Thursday afternoon and leaves Friday afternoon and must deal with many issues in that short time.”
Big defence deals like a Gripen system contract are usually a mix of cash and offset trade agreements and take long time to conclude.
Business and cooperation areas that will be discussed in Sweden, according to the PM office, are ITC, telecommunications, agriculture, industrial design, tourism and how to cut red tape for Thais working in Sweden.
A few more items on Thaksin’s agenda in Sweden have been made public.
Immediately after touchdown in Stockholm on the 23rd, after two days in Italy, will the Thai PM be driven to an audience with HM King Carl XVI Gustaf.
Prime Minister Göran Persson receives Thaksin for talks in the early evening and will after that host a dinner for Thailand’s Prime Minister.
A visit to Kista Science City is scheduled for Friday the 24.
The Thai PM is joined to Sweden by Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai, commerce minister Watana Muangsook, industry minister Phinij Jarusombat, PM chief policy adviser Pansak Vinyaratn, Thai trade representative Kanthati Suphamongkol and other senior government officials.
