Thai Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tanee Sangrat. He was Thai Ambassador to Vietnam from 2018 to 2021. (Photo: VOV Bangkok)

Reporter: How has the Thai Government prepared for the APEC Year 2022 and the APEC Economic Leaders’ Week?

Mr. Tanee Sangrat: Well, we've been preparing for this APEC economic summit for the past three years, both on the policy and substantive preparation. We are working on the three important documents. First, the leader statement on the summary of their discussion. But most importantly it's the Declaration of Bangkok goals on Bio-Circular-Green Economic Model (BCG). That is the most important document that we are working on, and hopefully the leaders will discuss, approve, and jointly declare Bangkok calls on BCG on November 19th. This declaration will put a milestone, an important legacy of Thailand's host of the APEC Year in moving our economies forward, more sustainably addressing the challenges, like the COVID-19 pandemic and other emerging diseases that may occur in the future. Hopefully with this Bangkok Declaration, our economies will start to transition to a more sustainable economy. Another important document that we're working on is the ministerial statement, which is the summary of the discussion of APEC Economic Ministers’ Meeting on the November 17^th.

Reporter: Vietnam’s State President will pay an official visit to Thailand and attend the APEC Economic Leaders’ Summit. On this occasion, how would you evaluate the strategic partnership between Vietnam and Thailand?

Mr. Tanee Sangrat: Vietnam is an economic powerhouse. It is a very important economic partner of Thailand and Southeast Asia.

Thailand is Vietnam's largest trading partner within ASEAN. Vietnam is Thailand's largest investment destination. Before COVID-19, over 1 million Vietnamese visited Thailand. Vietnam is also an important tourist destination and a source of tourists for Thailand as well.

Vietnam in itself, economically, politically, strategically, is very important to not only Thailand, but mainland Southeast Asia, and ASEAN as a whole. Vietnam plays an important role and is an important economic player within APEC. Vietnam has hosted APEC before. So, we will work and corporate closely, with Vietnam and all of our APEC member economies in preparing our economies for a more sustainable future.

Reporter: Next year, Thailand and Vietnam will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the bilateral Strategic Partnership. How would you see the prospects of bilateral cooperation in the years to come?

Mr. Tanee Sangrat: There's great potential of relationship and cooperation between our two countries.  Vietnam has a growing and emerging economy with relatively young population of close to a hundred million. It's an important market for Thailand and other countries, and an important investment destination for Thailand as well.

We can build on our relationship and our cooperation with Vietnam. We should work more on the strength and continuity of our supply chains, because of the production of the products in the region, the regionalization of investment, within millions of Asian depending on two anchors, Thailand and Vietnam.

Socially, there’s also a large Vietnamese-Thai community in Thailand which has very close relationship between Thailand, the country of their residence and Vietnam, the country where their parents come from.

It’s the same in Vietnam. There're also Vietnamese people who used to live in Thailand, and they have very long, good ties with Thailand and their families in Thailand. So, already there’s grateful friendship between the peoples of our two countries. We should build on that as well.

Reporter: Thank you so much for the interview.  That was Mr. Tanee Sangrat, Director-General of the Department of Information and spokesperson of the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was Thai Ambassador to Vietnam from 2018 to 2021.