[Computer selected and disseminated without FBIS editorial intervention] 
	
	
 Bangkok, 09 April Kyodo -- Thailand expects China's official response to its proposal for a free-trade agreement Friday when Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra meets Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji on the sidelines of a regional economic conference, local dailies said Tuesday. 
	
	
 Thaksin will leave Thailand on Thursday to visit Hainan Island in southern China to attend the first meeting of the two-day Boao Forum for Asia, which starts Friday. 
	
	
 Local dailies quoted senior Commerce Ministry official Boontipa Simaskul as saying that if China agrees to form a bilateral free-trade area, the time frame will be set immediately. 
	
	
 Boontipa, head of the ministry's Department of Business Economics, said the time frame of the bilateral free-trade area would be shorter than the 10-year time frame envisaged for a free-trade area between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Thailand is a member. 
	
	
 Senior officials from the 10-member ASEAN and China are due to meet in Beijing from May 13 through 15 to draw up a blueprint for a regional free-trade area. The meeting is the first since the initiative got the nod from their leaders during the annual ASEAN-China leaders' summit in Brunei last November. 
	
	
 The China-ASEAN free-trade area would be the world's largest with a combined market of nearly 1.8 billion people, a regional gross domestic product of US$2 trillion and international trade worth $1.2 trillion. 
	
	
 ASEAN comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. 
	
	
 Thailand and China had preliminary talks on a bilateral free-trade area last year. 
	
	
 Thaksin will also meet with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and South Korean Prime Minister Lee Han Dong on the sidelines of the conference before leaving for home Friday evening.