Commerce Ministry, retail giant to develop Thai grocery shops

BANGKOK, Oct 26 - The Commerce Ministry and Siam Makro Plc, the operator of Makro cash-and-carry stores, agreed to help develop Thai grocery shops to help them weather fierce competition from foreign supermarket chains, according to Permanent Secretary for Commerce Vatchari Vimooktayon.

Ms Vatchari said the commerce ministry supported and promoted fair trade practices and aimed to create market opportunity for retail trade to prepare Thai grocery shops for the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) to be established in 2015.

She said the cooperation with Makro would help in building the effectiveness of Thai grocery stores.

Commerce Ministry and Makro held a jointly held fair during October 26-28 at Makro Ladprao branch to develop Thai grocery stores with tips and recommendations for managing the shops.

Ms Vatchari said the ministry has a policy to help strengthen grocery shops nationwide and it was a good prospect that the private sector has joined with the Ministry to develop the grocery shops, to help them survive.

In the past five years, many grocery shops have adjusted themselves very well.

Makro, the leading wholesaler of food and non-food products from the Netherlands with an established network of 56 stores all over Thailand has around 2 million registered member-shoppers.

Some 600,000 grocery stores are among their members. (MCOT online news)

-- TNA 2012-10-26

Well no one knows how to run a business better than the government, just look at Thai Airways. Useless bureaucrats who have never worked a day in their lives outside the protected monopoly they call home are now business entrepreneurs then?

Well I suppose they could teach about paper stamping, photocopies, tea money, extended holidays, full pay inactive posts for corrupt or useless employees, overstaffing, underworking, arrogance, jobs for life...these would all be very useful to the private sector to build a competitive and successful business. Will be awaiting the outcome breathlessly.

Yes, it hurts if those bloody foreign shops like Tesco and Big C take away money that is rightfully ours.

Strangely enough I thought Makro was a foreign owned company. I used to use them back in the UK in the middle 1980s.

Well no one knows how to run a business better than the government, just look at Thai Airways. Useless bureaucrats who have never worked a day in their lives outside the protected monopoly they call home are now business entrepreneurs then?

Well I suppose they could teach about paper stamping, photocopies, tea money, extended holidays, full pay inactive posts for corrupt or useless employees, overstaffing, underworking, arrogance, jobs for life...these would all be very useful to the private sector to build a competitive and successful business. Will be awaiting the outcome breathlessly.

Strangely enough I thought Makro was a foreign owned company. I used to use them back in the UK in the middle 1980s.

So in the UK did you find them to be good at "paper stamping, photocopies, tea money, extended holidays, full pay inactive posts for corrupt or useless employees, overstaffing, underworking, arrogance, jobs for life...?"

Sounds more like the British civil service, but I suppose they've been indoctrinating the private sector at home and spreading it further abroad???

Edited October 27, 201213 yr by Suradit69

Does anyone read the OP before commenting ?"Makro, the leading wholesaler of food and non-food products from the Netherlands"

They sure managed to build a year-on-year record breaking boat that floats quite successfully during the last 10 years. Currently some pensioners in the Netherlands tend to believe their old cash-and-carry stores of the early 60s of previous century were trashcan fillers: invitations to buy more than they actually needed. I figured out a 2011 monthly total revenue of approx. 4.100 BHT for each of all registered (assuming to be true) member-shoppers. That's an equivalent of approx. 1 full shopping car every 2 weeks for each of them...

Does anyone read the OP before commenting ?"Makro, the leading wholesaler of food and non-food products from the Netherlands"

Yes, I read that and also the bit that said

Quote

Siam Makro Plc, the operator of Makro cash-and-carry stores, agreed to help develop Thai grocery shops to help them weather fierce competition from foreign supermarket chains.

I found it amusing that a foreign owned wholesaler of food and non-food products from the Netherlands would help Thai grocery chains against foreign competitors when it is foreign owned itself.

Well no one knows how to run a business better than the government, just look at Thai Airways. Useless bureaucrats who have never worked a day in their lives outside the protected monopoly they call home are now business entrepreneurs then?

Well I suppose they could teach about paper stamping, photocopies, tea money, extended holidays, full pay inactive posts for corrupt or useless employees, overstaffing, underworking, arrogance, jobs for life...these would all be very useful to the private sector to build a competitive and successful business. Will be awaiting the outcome breathlessly.

Strangely enough I thought Makro was a foreign owned company. I used to use them back in the UK in the middle 1980s.

So in the UK did you find them to be good at "paper stamping, photocopies, tea money, extended holidays, full pay inactive posts for corrupt or useless employees, overstaffing, underworking, arrogance, jobs for life...?"

Sounds more like the British civil service, but I suppose they've been indoctrinating the private sector at home and spreading it further abroad???

No, actually I found them quite competitive really.

As for the British civil service I worked for the Home office as a police radio engineer for 4 years and we were never as you described them above. In fact we were understaffed as the pay was poor and there were no jobs for life nor gold plated pensions either.