Thailand and ASEAN had an agreement
on free trade area (FTA) with China
since November 2003 and it has been
carried out in July 2005. After the FTA,
mainly implemented tariff reduction on
fruits, Thai fruit exports to China have
been substantially increased and China
allows 23 Thai fruits to be imported and
of these, longan, durian, mangosteen,
pomelo, rambutan, sweet tamarind,
rose apple and mango are fast gaining
popularity. Even thought, the tariff
barriers have been steadily reduced,
there has been increasing interest in
the ways that non-tariff barriers (NTBs)
may distort and restrict international
trade. There had an evidenced support
from many studies showed that NTBs,
consist of Sanitary and Phyto-sanitary
(SPS) measures covering chemical
residue, diseases, insects, artificial
substances and food contamination,
have recently cause some problems
to Thai fruit exports. In addition, the
qualitative analysis also indicated that
China is still imposing a value-added
tax (VAT) of up to 13% on imported
fruits for all counties, including those
fruits from Thailand. Thus to maintain
and increase market shares of fruits in
China market, farmers who have grown
fruits have to adjust themselves to cope
with the SPS measures and the government
has to do something about valueadded
tax being added instead of tariff
by the Chinese government.
Under those circumstances, many
questions has been emerged especially