BANGKOK, Dec. 20(Xinhuanet)-- China and Thailand began a joint meeting in Thai north province of Chiang Rai Tuesday to strengthen ties and remove trade barriers, hoping to increase bilateral trade under the free trade area(FTA) framework.

Presiding over the seminar on Sino-Thai Trade, Investment and Economic Cooperation in this northernmost province, Thailand's Deputy Transport Minister Preecha Laohapongchana said the meeting would focus on the fruit and vegetable trade between the two countries.

He said that Liu Ping, Vice Governor of China's Yunnan Province, led a team of more than 100 businesspeople for talks on greater cooperation on trade and investment issues. Negotiations centered on problems associated with the import and export of fruit and vegetables.

Sino-Thai trade volume under the FTA reached more than 8 billion US dollars in the first 10 months of this year, as against 7.12 billion US dollars in the previous 15 months between October 2003 and December 2004.

Preecha said the continuing cooperation and visits by delegations from each side would help boost bilateral trade and investment, and clear up possible misunderstanding of the agreement as well as obstacles to trade.

"We believe each seminar and mutual visit by the two sides will help increase the value of trade and investment up to 50 billion US dollars and 5-6 billion US dollars respectively, as targeted in the next five years.

"It will also help raise the number of tourists to up to 4 million in the period," he said.

Preecha said Thailand has enjoyed a trade surplus with China of more than 9 billion Baht(about 225 million US dollars) in the fruit and vegetable trade since the FTA was established in October2003. Enditem