Thailand, India Strengthen Supply Chain Ties Across Five Industries

Deputy Prime Minister and Commerce Minister Suphajee Suthummaphan disclosed that on September 9, 2025, she met with India's Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal at India's Ministry of Commerce and Industry in New Delhi to strengthen economic, trade, and investment relations between Thailand and India. She emphasized that Thailand and India are mutually supportive economic partners ready to elevate their relationship to a "Trusted Strategic Partnership," moving beyond a simple trading partnership to one that jointly creates new products, businesses, and markets while expanding opportunities to third countries and global markets.

Suphajee noted that both nations possess complementary strengths that can be connected to create shared value. India boasts a large economy, skilled personnel, technology and innovation, and significant market potential, while Thailand offers comprehensive production capabilities from upstream to downstream, product quality and standards, agility, and serves as a vital gateway to ASEAN. Thailand therefore proposed a "Co-Creation Co-Investment" model to link both countries' strengths and develop cooperation that can be integrated into global supply chains.

Initially, five pilot sectors have been proposed: processed food, health and wellness, green industry, gemstones and jewelry, and hospitality. These pairings leverage each nation's capabilities—for example, India has raw gemstones and large markets while Thailand excels in design and cutting, or in hospitality where India has a young, growing population expanding in tourism and services while Thailand possesses expertise and curricula in hotel management and service that can be jointly developed.

"What we want to see is not just increased trade figures between us, but Thailand and India combining their strengths to create new products, services, technology, and businesses, linking into global supply chains and expanding to third-country markets. This will enable Thailand and India to grow together sustainably," Suphajee said.

Suphajee noted that the India visit included Thai business delegations interested in investing and expanding in India to discuss and exchange business opportunities. After meeting with India's commerce and industry minister, both sides met with Thai delegations and private sector representatives to exchange views and advance opportunities in trade, investment, and innovation. Participants included Thai shipping companies, SCG-WD Logistics, and executives from the India-Thailand Chamber of Commerce and the National Science and Technology Development Agency.

Both sides agreed to advance trade and investment cooperation mechanisms, with Thailand hosting the next Thailand-India Joint Trade Committee meeting in October to discuss progress on various cooperation initiatives and ways to develop trade relations for mutual benefit, supporting the elevation of both countries' economic partnership. The two sides also agreed to accelerate alignment of online retail payment systems using QR codes.