In Thailand Free Trade Agreement, The Import Tariff System Is A Comparative Study

This study aims to examine the comparison of import tax system including the importation, import regulations and procedures between Kingdom of Thailand and The People's Republic of China under Thai -China Free Trade Agreement. The data collection was from the related document, related articles, internet document, the interview of two entrepreneurs who import products from China and two exporters who export product to China. The results of the study could be divided into two parts:the regulations and procedures in importing between Kingdom of Thailand and The People's Republic of China and the comparison of the import tax system of Thailand and China.Referring to the Free Trade Agreement between Thailand and China mentions about Asean-China economic agreement between Thailand and China began to regulate agreement to reduce the import of vegetables and fruits as the tariff on 07-08. Therefore, the import tax had been reduced to 0 percentage since 1st October 2003. The first tariff was agricultural products as the tariff on 01-08 had been reduced since 1st January 2004 and decrease to 0 percentage on 1st January 2006. Besides the agricultural products, the tariff began to decrease on 1st July 2005 to 0 percentage within 1st January 2010 and the sensitive products that are not prepared to be tariff reduction and the normal products have absolutely adjusted for a long time that will be reduced the tariff on 1st January 2012 to 0-5 percentages within January 2018. The tariff will be reduced for the high sensitive products that will be not more than 50 percentages within 1st January 2015.The study of the comparison of the regulations and procedures in importation under Thai-China Free Trade Agreement showed that there are 4 procedures; exported preparation, importation, quality control check and customs clearance. As the exported preparation, the exporters must prepare the exported document such as products list, invoice, Phytosanitary Certificate, Certificate of Origin Form E that they must process under the export office regulations. Thus, they will obtain the privilege for tax reduction under Thai-China Free Trade Agreement, and all of Thai-China procedures are exactly the same situation. As the imported procedures of China, the Chinese importers must ask for the government's import permit form. For the import of Thailand does not necessary to ask for that permission. As the quality control check, China importation has to check the quality at the customs office and also checks quality control in the lab in contrast with Thailand where only checks in the customs office. When this procedure has already passed well, it can export those particularly products. The period of examination for import and customs clearance products from the customs office found that Thailand spends 3-4 days in importation but China spends approximately 26 days.The result of the comparative study of the tax system revealed that is consisted of the tariff and the value-added tax. Before Thai-China Free Trade Agreement, Thailand has the tariff rate for the agricultural products as the tariff on 01-08 beginning from 5-60 percentages while China has the tariff rate as 10-30 percentages. After there was an agreement, the tariff rate will decrease as 0 percentages, so it showed that Thailand is more reduction in tariff than China. Referring to the value-added tax before and after an agreement, there had not been difference since it was not under the agreement. Therefore, the import of agricultural products to Thailand will be excepted for the value-added tax in contradiction China has to pay for 13 percentages of the agricultural products import and 7 percentages for transformed agricultural products. These cases could show that the importers who import the agricultural products from China to Thailand will pay the tax less than the importers who import the products from Thailand to China.In conclusion, the exporters who will export the products from Thailand to the membership in Asean-China or the other countries under the Free Trade Agreement should realize about the procedures, regulations and the related tariff rate that will differ in each country.