ASEAN becomes largest importer of Thai food and agricultural products

[webfact]

ASEAN becomes largest importer of Thai food and agricultural products



BANGKOK, 12 January 2015 (NNT) - The cross-border trade of agricultural commodities and foods between Thailand and its four neighboring countries has a tendency to grow in both value and volume thanks to the on-going regional collaboration in reducing trade barriers.

The optimism came from Mr.Pisan Pongsapitch, Deputy Secretary-General of the National Bureau of Agricultural Commodity and Food Standards (ACFS).

He said that major Thai exports to Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Malaysia are vegetables, sugar, chicken and pork meat. Vice versa, Thailand has imported beans, corn for animal feed and shrimp. The combined value of bilateral trade between Thailand and those countries is worth around 100,000 million baht and is expected to increase in the future.

Thailand is exporting food and agricultural products worth altogether one trillion baht to the world market, one-fourth of which is from its sales to the nine other ASEAN members, making the regional bloc Thailand's largest trading partner in terms of these products.

The Secretary-General also said that the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives is prepared for the growing trade activities across the border by integrating the work of the Quarantine stations for plants, animals and aquatic animals. These three quarantine stations are now working closely via the Internet in order to boost the efficiency of commodity inspection along the border.

-- NNT 2015-01-12

[Tomtomtom69]

Most of this type of trade is traded informally across the land borders between the 4 neighbors. All it takes is a pickup truck or even a larger truck full of cans of Thai tuna or bananas or whatever loaded to the brim, which easily crosses the border with minimal or even no inspection taking place.

All this quarantine stuff is hocus pocus, means nothing in this region. Most trade is not done officially and the idea of having to go through a whole set of quarantine procedures to export agricultural produce in this region seems ridiculous. I've seen it with my own eyes - truck carries rubber between Laos and Thailand - no need to do any inspection, "oh, you're the rubber truck - just go on then".

[Fiddlesticks]

Wow! What a surprising revelation! Who would have thought that neighboring countries would be markets for Thai products. It makes much more sense to ship them halfway around the world where shipping times and costs could make the agricultural products more appealing. Frankly, I'm stunned by this news.

[muratremix]

100,000 million?? 100 billion?

[BudRight]

100,000 million?? 100 billion?

1/10 trillion. Ah the land of made up numbers.

[h90]

Most of this type of trade is traded informally across the land borders between the 4 neighbors. All it takes is a pickup truck or even a larger truck full of cans of Thai tuna or bananas or whatever loaded to the brim, which easily crosses the border with minimal or even no inspection taking place.

All this quarantine stuff is hocus pocus, means nothing in this region. Most trade is not done officially and the idea of having to go through a whole set of quarantine procedures to export agricultural produce in this region seems ridiculous. I've seen it with my own eyes - truck carries rubber between Laos and Thailand - no need to do any inspection, "oh, you're the rubber truck - just go on then".

I don't know if it is most. If some containers are shipped that is a lot of pickups.......

[sfokevin]

Most of this type of trade is traded informally across the land borders between the 4 neighbors. All it takes is a pickup truck or even a larger truck full of cans of Thai tuna or bananas or whatever loaded to the brim, which easily crosses the border with minimal or even no inspection taking place.

All this quarantine stuff is hocus pocus, means nothing in this region. Most trade is not done officially and the idea of having to go through a whole set of quarantine procedures to export agricultural produce in this region seems ridiculous. I've seen it with my own eyes - truck carries rubber between Laos and Thailand - no need to do any inspection, "oh, you're the rubber truck - just go on then".

But an official inspection/quarantine and import system is needed extort bribes... Duh...

Edited January 12, 2015 by sfokevin

[GAZZPA]

Meanwhile,,, GSP has officially been withdrawn on Jan 1st for Thai manufacturers across many product areas including food. The shrimp industry has suffered significantly as EU and US duty benefits are withdrawn for Thailand.

Exports will suffer significantly during December and of course january as buyers pull back their orders in order to avoid the cost increase of the landed Thai products.

the Thai government did almost nothing to plan and counteract this despite significant warning resulting in loss of revenue for Thailand.

[surangw]

so, asian people eat asian food in the asean region ?

[tonbridgebrit]

Go on Thailand, tell the European Union to shut up when they threaten a boycott against you.

Actually, laugh at them, tell them "we are copying your free-trade deals within the EU, we're trying to do free-trade in our own ASEAN, and it appears to be working, we're doing free-trade within ASEAN, but not freedom of movement of all workers".

So, a bunch of Burmese are illegal immigrants in Thailand, and they produce food that will be exported to Burma. Boats leave a Thai harbour (not a Burmese harbour) packed with Burmese staff who might be illegal migrants. And the sea-food might be exported to Burma. Why can't Burma use it's own slave labour to produce food for Burma ? Why does Burma export it's own slaves to Thailand ?
Come on Burma, prevent your own slaves from ending up in Thailand. You can do that by making conditions in Burma better, that way, your own people don't have to go to Thailand and be slave labourers. But we all know, burma, you'ill never do that, you'ill just carry on supplying Thailand with Burmese slaves.

And Laos and Cambodia. Don't you feel odd that you're sending your own people as cheap labour to Thailand, so that Thailand can then export cheap food to you ??

Thais, they're not dumb actually. They might be nasty though. Exploit cheap foreign labour to export food to those foreign countries that are providing the cheap labour. Thailand won't allow ASEAN to flood Thailand with cheaper registered workers, but Thailand is happy to use ASEAN's free-trade rules to export the stuff.