BANGKOK (AP) Chinese Premier Li Keqiang became the first foreign leader to address Thailand's Parliament in more than a decade Friday as he began a three-day visit aimed at strengthening ties and seeking business for his country's high-speed railway technology.
Li's speech underscored China's growing influence in Southeast Asia a week after Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered the first speech by a foreign leader to Indonesia's Parliament.
Li told the Thai lawmakers that Thailand and China will boost their trade to $100 billion by the end of 2015 and that China will buy more Thai agricultural produce.
"In the next five years, China will import 1 million tons of rice from Thailand and will also import more rubber," Li said.
Thailand's government has struggled to sell much of the rice it has amassed in a rice-buying scheme that is a flagship policy of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra's administration. The scheme has accumulated losses of at least $4.46 billion since it was introduced in 2011. Its inability to resell the high-priced rice on the international market allowed India and Vietnam to surpass Thailand in the value of their rice exports.