Letter to The Journal

Sir,

The assistance that the countries and people devastated by the Tsunami now need is the encouragement to recover, using their own resources.

Clearly, what the West needs to now do, is to help that process by removing those appalling trade barriers that prevent development and deny the people of South-East Asia proper money for their work.

Thailand, for example was last month told by the European Union in Brussels to buy six Airbus aircraft if it wanted to escape EU duties of 12 percent on its prawns. Thailand which is the world's largest prawn exporter, had reluctantly agreed to the deal - just before the disaster struck. The Thai Government protested that the prawn tariff it faced was three times the 4 percent imposed on neighbouring Malaysia. The United States also imposes similar tariff penalties on Thailand.

The long term answer to sustainable post disaster recovery and future prosperity is trade as well as aid.