Thai bid for WTO seat

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia pledged its backing for Thailand's bid to the chair of the Committee for Agricultural Products of the World Trade Organization (WTO) when the two nation's trade ministers met on Saturday.

Jakarta will lend full support, Minister of Trade S.B. Joedono said after a meeting with his Thai counterpart Uthai Pimchaichon who was visiting at the head of a delegation.

Both nations belong to the Cairn group of agricultural commodity producing countries which presented a common front in the Uruguay Round of global trade negotiations which were concluded early this year.

The group had agreed to get the WTO's agricultural products committee's chairmanship for one of its members.

The two ministers also discussed the possibility of a counter- trade deal between Thai rice and Indonesian aircraft, Joedono said.(17)