Government Strategy and Support for Regional Trade Agreements: The Case of Thailand

Academic literature has theoretically discussed government strategy on regional trade agreements (RTAs) and has empirically identified some elements that play significant roles for that. The purpose of this study is to check the validity of these elements by means of a questionnaire survey of government officials in Thailand. For example, it asks how the officials choose the RTA partners, the products to be excluded from liberalization, and the liberalization patterns. Furthermore, in order to clarify who has influence on the officials' decision, the survey asks the order of priority among several kinds of stakeholders. Our findings provide valuable insight about understanding the formulation process of trade negotiation strategy and the motivation for different liberalization patterns from the policy-makers' perspective.