Japan and Thailand have reached a basic accord on a free-trade agreement, overcoming differences on automobile trade, trade minister Shoichi Nakagawa said Monday in Bangkok.
A Thai negotiator confirmed an agreement has been reached but said a signing ceremony for the pact is unlikely to come before next April.
The FTA with Thailand is the fifth for Japan, which has FTAs with Singapore and Mexico and struck basic deals with the Philippines last November and Malaysia in May.
After months of negotiations, Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Nakagawa and Thai Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak, who is also the finance minister, met to resolve the final stumbling bloc over the tariff elimination of finished car imports from Japan, deciding to reduce tariffs gradually to a certain point and then renegotiate the matter.