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Thai Exports to Japan Delayed By Disaster Damage

In the aftermath of a massive earthquake and tsunami, many Japanese people are without food, clean water, blankets, and basic supplies, due to difficulties in transporting the items to the damaged areas.

Director-General of the Department of Export Promotion, Nantawan Sakuntanak has gathered 18 exporters to discuss issues concerning the effects the earthquake and tsunami will have on Thai exports to Japan.

Nantawan said the Japanese people currently lack dry foods, clean water, blankets, sleeping bags, and flashlights. He said authorities have coordinated with relevant producers to gather items for the Japanese people.

However, transportation has been made extremely difficult because of the widespread damage.

The lack of workers and power supply have also made allocation challenging.

Nantawan said producers are unable to distribute items, especially frozen foods, but the problems are expected to be resolved within 1 to 2 days.

President of the Thai Frozen Foods Associations or TFFA, Dr.Panisuan Jamnarnwej admits that Thai exports to Japan have slowed.

He estimated that the situation has damaged the export sector by 11 million U.S. dollars, where 9 million U.S. dollars are from the delays in export orders, and 2 million dollars from items being left in stocks.

Dr. Panisuan said the situation will not affect Thai exports as a whole, or will only affect the sector by half a percent.

He said Thai exports will experience a slowdown in the short-term, but are expected to recover soon.

In addition, the Department of Export Promotion, together with the Culture Education and Suan Dusit Rajabhat University, has signed contracts on the Thai-Japan Chef Development project aiming to promote Thai foods in Japan.

The project will train Thai chefs in cooking traditional dishes in order to open at least three restaurants in Japan in the next 3 to 5 years.

-- Tan Network 2011-03-16