Banker warns of dire effect on Thai economy if fishing ban is enforced

[connda]

It is so important that the Thai fishing industry address this problem. They received a red flag from the US, and escaped a ban, but if the UK address' the issue head on with a ban, the US would have to follow suit. I remember from shopping in the states, for many years, all of the shrimp come from Thailand. I believe the problem is not illegal workers, but workers that signed on to work on a anchored ship for a few months at sea, and being kept there for years.

On the plus side, it will greatly weaken the baht against the dollar. The important thing is to have workers free to come & go. If this causes a lack of workers, and the price must go up, so be it. I am not rich by any means, but I do not want to buy cheaper shrimp in the US if it is because of slave workers. If Thailand does not act quickly, and the US & UK media starts to hammer at this, the Thai market will collapse.

Sanctions would definitely give the government and the boat owners the 'push' they need to clean up the mess. Hopefully the US will follow suit.

I've commerical fished in my youth. There is a huge amount of money to be spread around, and the crew should be well paid for doing that type of job, not put into slavery. I can't even fathom the greed of the owners upward. What complete pieces of human excrement -- the owners and those who allow the status quo.

Sanctions would be good. Kudos EU.

Edited April 28, 2015 by connda

[Fat Haggis]

The economy is in tatters as it is, according for the BP this morning export forecast is going to be reduced again to around 1%.

Tourist spending is down, the 400,000 Chinese didn't appear for Songkran, hotels offering up to 50% discount for Thais, and still people like the Tourism minister will turn facts into fiction. And there will be the usual Kool aid gang defending their statistics through graphs produced to make the Titanic look like she was meant to be a submarine !!!

Can you provide a citation on your theory that 400,000 Chinese did not appear for Songkran. Seems like you have been Cherry Picking!

TATs own figures themselves stated songkran arrivals were less than anticipated, they are the ones who made the claims all with bells and whistles on like it was some kind of new step.

I never seen a single post from TaT to say yes sadly tourism entries failed to meet targets but hey, we were right about the 400,000 Chinese.

Instead they whined about Russian tourists down and European tourist numbers down to their home country economics.

Feel free to believe what TAT print and say, I don't and neither do many others.

Cherry picking as opposed to full on bullshit lies from TAT?

[mikiea]

The EU wouldn't dare take LoS on, would they ?

No problem at all. Putin and China will save all! China, China, China. Just stomp your feet three times and China will come to the rescue.

yes china will come ......take all that there is to take and laugh at the thai people . china has no friends , and there is a reason for that .

[VINCENT2012]

we would make a favour to the eco system if the eu banned them.....and not only the thai.....many more!!...... seas and rivers of thailand are fish less since long time.just come and see to ubon to the mun river..!or other places!

economy and money is one human thing....the planet need a rest...........we kill everything on the name of the economy and grow....and we are wrong because one day nothing will be left for you to put in your mounth.

then what will happen?

i am glad we are more clever in europe .....we do fish with quotas now... who are controlled by specialist and every body is happy and responsable with that mature decision...the fishers and the consumer!

[connda]

The West is right, of course, to condemn human trafficking and to envisage a ban if nothing is done to stop it.

The thing is ... this kind of abuse comes at the end of a capitalistic chain of causes and effects, whereby His-Majesty-The-Market causes the producing end of the line to look for ever-and-ever cheaper ways to reduce production costs. May I remind all the self-righteous Americans who are now pontificating on the subject and telling the Thais how shocked they are of such practises, that before the Civil War the main argument of the Southern States for maintaining slavery was based on economic factors... Cotton and tobacco (mainly) were sold at such and such prices because the labor was the cheapest possible, ie slaves.

Slavery is wrong, wrong, wrong, there is no discussing that. What is worth discussing is how it comes about, and how many people down the line are indirectly responsible for it, in fact. And that includes you and me, the general public who goes to the local supermarket and is delighted to find these Thai shrimps at such amazingly low prices...

Isn't it time to acknowledge that "fair trade", that beautiful idea, should not just be about the West slapping hands of traders in developping countries and telling them tsk tsk, you should not be making so much money on the back of producers, while that is precisely what Western distributors are doing ? How about educating the general public, the so-called consumers, and explaining to them that there is a line which should not be crossed in selling prices, unless you don't mind wearing shoes that were made by slave kids and so on...

$30/lbs in the US? There is a lot of money being siphoned off between the boat owners and the retail buyer who is buying "cheap shrimp". And in the US, your shrimp is just as likely to come from Mexico as it is Thailand. Use to come from the US Gulf of Mexico, but a certain oil company put an end to that.

[TPI]

They government has almost impossible situations on their hands. Past governments and state officials have done little or nothing to correct them and now they are all falling into the General's hands at about the same time. I hope he can resolve them. I don't envy his position.

He didn't have to take on the role of PM, a poor tradesman always blames his tools!! You reap what you sow and deflecting it back to the previous inept crowd is expected from a particular quarter. He was warned about the impact of Martial Law on the economy by REAL economists and financial experts and he dismissed these as being anti junta and that nobody understood Thainess or the situation in the country.

There is NOTHING stopping him from stepping down and bringing in a cabinet where he has the experts, the losses occurred in the Thai economy due to the coup have been Staggering if the economic experts outside of Thailand are to be believed.

Bottom line, it's happening on his watch, he and he alone brought in people like Kobakarn and put his buddies in positions they had no experience in.

Yes he inherited a mess, but he wanted that position so badly, and now has ultimate control with no accountability with article 44, he has to accept the bad shit along with the good!!

Hate to disagree but! If you remember he waited for the two camps to come up with a solution and when they didn't, took over! The problem seems to be with the fishing industry, they are so used to living off the labour of slaves that they're finding it impossible to comply! To comply would mean they will have to forgo access to their slave holding islands, no sex for food.....gasp! Can't just kill a troublesome slave! Accountability for what fish we take, no more banned species!! How awful, next they're be wanting to have the Thai Navy stop being the most evil pirates in the south China Sea!!!!

[fareastguy]

Quote:

The deputy director-general revealed that the department will be foregoing inspection fees for vessels not exceeding 20 gross tons and new criteria will be formulated for the issuance of crew’s papers to address the problem of illegal workers.
He admitted that in the past counterfeit papers were widely used by fishing vessels but the problem is now being looked after by the Department for Special Investigations (DSI) and there should be a dramatic reduction in the foreseeable future.

In other words: with immediate effect all captains are required to fill out "false paperwork" to cover the illegal crews & the DSI/Harbour authorities will turn a blind eye so fishing can continue as normal !!!

No mention of a change in the working conditions of the slaves, no mention of a change in the salaries of the "slaves" no mention of a change about caging "slaves" in fact I can't really see any change in anything !!!!
Do they really think that if the "slaves" are given a "worthless" piece of paper the rest of the world will go away and leave Thailand to continue in it's illegal operations ???

Thainess at it's finest !!!

[retarius]

Exports of fish are only 1 billion US per year....this doesn't all go to the EU...so it seems to be an hysterical reaction by Kasikorn.

[Mot Dang]

This guy is a banker, remember, and a member of the upper class. He has to refer to money matters as the country's biggest issues. That's his job. Those rose-colored glasses may not be so rosy in the not so distant future. What is more important than the holey dollar (sorry, baht) ?

[englishoak]

Exports of fish are only 1 billion US per year....this doesn't all go to the EU...so it seems to be an hysterical reaction by Kasikorn.

Not sure if it will include all fish products but it should, if so it'll be a lot more than 1B

[soalbundy]

If the EU happens to place a sanction on Thailand' fishing industry.....you can bet others will follow.......

One can only hope that the Thais take heed of this warning and actually do something concrete to solve this issue!

Yes, they could put sanctions on the EU to stop their "low life" coming here

Now that would collapse the economy

[catweazle]

I - as a layman - warn the whole world of the dire effects if fishing continues at the same rate worldwide: All oceans dead latest by 2050. How will we explain this to our grand children?

Edited April 28, 2015 by catweazle

[catweazle]

It however is nice to see that the Thais don't like the taste of their own medicine (ban on this, restriction on that, crackdown on foreigners and making it ever more difficult for them to legally live here, etc. while they (the Thais) can indulge in whatever illegal activity they like)...

Now they are all howling and whining... "Why ban our products? Just because we have the whole fishery industry in LOS run by sadistic sodomizing Thai captains and submissive illegal Burmese slaves? Just because we throw some of them overboard at high sea from time to time if they refuse to work harder for nothing? Come on, white people, you can't do this!? You can't ban our ploduct just because of those litten plomplems!!! It's unfair!!!!"

Edited April 28, 2015 by catweazle

[BudRight]

Giving them six months wasn't a good idea. They'll just hope the problem goes away by itself.

[ableguy]

The economy is in tatters as it is, according for the BP this morning export forecast is going to be reduced again to around 1%.

Tourist spending is down, the 400,000 Chinese didn't appear for Songkran, hotels offering up to 50% discount for Thais, and still people like the Tourism minister will turn facts into fiction. And there will be the usual Kool aid gang defending their statistics through graphs produced to make the Titanic look like she was meant to be a submarine !!!

Super statement on the Titanic , so true.

[Srikcir]

They government has almost impossible situations on their hands. Past governments and state officials have done little or nothing to correct them and now they are all falling into the General's hands at about the same time. I hope he can resolve them. I don't envy his position.

Sorry, but nothing fell into General Prayut's hands.

The military turned a blind eye to the disruption and violence of the anti-government protests, chose to overthrow the elected government when it refused to step down, and assumed rule of the nation for the military. He came to power with an elected government paralyzed since mid-2013 and caused a complete disruption of government activities with his tailor made Junta government.

General Prayut's first priority as PM was to secure subjugation of the nation and only much later did he begin to address the economy left in ruins by shutdown and dismissal of the elected government. He must accept responsibility the consequences of any EU ban.

[chilli42]

One part of me hates to see this happen as do many will suffer economic hardship ... as if they don't have enough of that. The other part of me says that it high time it does happen (add the it lines to that list). Once everyone has had an opportunity to live through the consequences it's not likely that the conditions will be allowed to exist for it to happen again. It's a bit the way I feel when disciplining my kids ... sometimes you just have to be cruel to be kind.

[26vinny]

An outright ban is the only way the thai`s will learn nothing else will do, as they will be seen to start but never get anywhere,the slavery etc all tied to the military and politicians and elitest, prayut would have to go against his own regime, never gonna happen. just saying.

[Thai at Heart]

A leading banker is warning of the possible banning of Thailand’s fishery products by the European Union will have a dire effect on the country’s economy.

So there's a least one that hasn't got he head stuck firmly up his backside and believes that Thailand is immune from external forces.

What Prayut and his merry band don't seem to see is that if the EU enforces the ban then the US are almost certain to follow suit. It could cost the Thai economy over $2 billion in lost revenue and a hefty impact on the economy.

Banthoon Lamsam, chairman and chief executive officer of Kasikorn Bank, stated that the main problems facing the country at the moment are the economy, civil aviation industry and the fisheries sector.

Pity he didn't go on to underline the real issue of the issues ... Corruption! Yes it might seem like a good idea to generate vast wealth by stealing it but alas there comes a time when the you realise that the economy is built on quick-sand and the building is beginning to sink into the abyss.

He advises that both the private and government sectors coordinate to resolve the problem to avoid an economic crisis that could cripple the country.

What he asks for he won't get. Ultimately it will have to result in arresting all those who have engaged in profiting from human trafficking, slavery and illegal fishing. Who knows how high up the tree this goes and if you arrest the small fish without significant compensation then they'll start point the finger up the line. Once again corruption will make a country eventually pay the price for you cannot run an economy based on the uneven and unstable grounds of corruption.

Meanwhile the Department of Harbour is coordinating with the relevant departments to solve the problem of human trafficking which is the root complaint of illicit human trade by western countries.

As if they were surprised. They knew what was going on and many of them have become rich by it.

He admitted that in the past counterfeit papers were widely used by fishing vessels but the problem is now being looked after by the Department for Special Investigations (DSI) and there should be a dramatic reduction in the foreseeable future.

Yes and who supplied the counterfeit documents and who looked the other way after receiving a bundle of cash. Neither was done out of friendship or the goodness of their heart because you can't be friends with crooks and you can't have a heart when you are prepared to be complicit in the act of human trafficking and slavery.

The bottom line is that Banthoon Lamsam is perfectly correct; it could well cripple the economy for the fishing industry is in fact tied to many others, boats, machinery, engines and so forth and all these businesses will feel the effects.

On a personal note ... I think it would be a far greater kindness for the EU to impose a ban. Maybe then they'll learn the true lesson that corruption doesn't work in the long-term and that human trafficking and slavery is the lowest possible level you can sink to in order to make a profit.

The real problem is 'Mai bpen arai'. Quite often Thais do genuinely believe there is no piper to be paid for their conduct. Who can blame them. Companies and fish buyers have known for decades that this industry had problems and did nothing.

But now, they can't and won't be bluffed and finally someone has to do something. No enforcement, no change.

And let us not forget it isn't so long ago that our parts of the world had many similar problems but with enforcement things changed. Well, here comes the enforcer and Thais will have to change. Painful but necessary change too.

I don't expect companies to spend too much on things unnecessarily. But now it's time to change.

[wowfactor10]

I assume they will simply continue and sell that illegal fish to China and Russia...

[soalbundy]

I - as a layman - warn the whole world of the dire effects if fishing continues at the same rate worldwide: All oceans dead latest by 2050. How will we explain this to our grand children?

We wont have to, most of us will be dead by then.

[Local Drunk]

They government has almost impossible situations on their hands. Past governments and state officials have done little or nothing to correct them and now they are all falling into the General's hands at about the same time. I hope he can resolve them. I don't envy his position.

He didn't have to take on the role of PM, a poor tradesman always blames his tools!! You reap what you sow and deflecting it back to the previous inept crowd is expected from a particular quarter. He was warned about the impact of Martial Law on the economy by REAL economists and financial experts and he dismissed these as being anti junta and that nobody understood Thainess or the situation in the country.

There is NOTHING stopping him from stepping down and bringing in a cabinet where he has the experts, the losses occurred in the Thai economy due to the coup have been Staggering if the economic experts outside of Thailand are to be believed.

Bottom line, it's happening on his watch, he and he alone brought in people like Kobakarn and put his buddies in positions they had no experience in.

Yes he inherited a mess, but he wanted that position so badly, and now has ultimate control with no accountability with article 44, he has to accept the bad shit along with the good!!

Knowing his demeanor, the man is just too proud to step down or even ask for help from technocrats. I will give him credit for trying but honestly he and his generals are totally inadequate in collective skill and expertise to solve the economic and political headwinds. His only solution is to have the election as soon as possibility can even if it means another 8/9 months of economic struggle and an ugly charter. I also think the EU will give an extension to the outright ban if the junta show some degree of efforts inner-structuring the fishery industry. Really to expect a result in 6 months is purely insane and not possible.

Eric, pride comes before a fall, and all to easy to go from hero to zero in a short period of time.

Yingluck or her brother to the rescue perhaps?

[Fat Haggis]

God I hope not!!

[metisdead]

Off topic posts and replies have been removed.

[jerojero]

The Thai Baht is still high so all must be ok or am I being to simplistic. Normally with so much bad news around a country's currency is under pressure and I know the Thai Baht has additional rules compared to major currencies but even so why is it so high when Thailand exports rice, cars and needs Tourism I would have thought a lower Baht would be desired. I must be missing something.

Wait a while longer, as exports drop less demand for Thai baht currency, and it will fall...just wait. Basic economics.

[Local Drunk]

They government has almost impossible situations on their hands. Past governments and state officials have done little or nothing to correct them and now they are all falling into the General's hands at about the same time. I hope he can resolve them. I don't envy his position.

Sorry, but nothing fell into General Prayut's hands.

The military turned a blind eye to the disruption and violence of the anti-government protests, chose to overthrow the elected government when it refused to step down, and assumed rule of the nation for the military. He came to power with an elected government paralyzed since mid-2013 and caused a complete disruption of government activities with his tailor made Junta government.

General Prayut's first priority as PM was to secure subjugation of the nation and only much later did he begin to address the economy left in ruins by shutdown and dismissal of the elected government. He must accept responsibility the consequences of any EU ban.

I think he will address this problem to the satisfaction of the EU, if he doesn't then the government will find other markets and the EU will be paying a lot more for their fish. By the way... Yingluck and her government weren't over-thrown by the military.

[billd766]

Thailand's behavior has been so disgusting over the last decades when it comes to slavery and human trafficking, that I have zero sympathy for the slave owners and corrupt officials who will now take a hit. They should all be arrested, but so far none has. Until these boat owners, captains and corrupt officials faces charges for murder, kidnapping, torture, assault, trafficking, document forgery, crimes against the environment etc, Thailand should bear full sanctions BOTH from USA and EU.

The junta has the power to arrest AND convict these criminal. What are they waiting for?

How about proof and catching people in the act? That usually helps in courtrooms.

[Fat Haggis]

They government has almost impossible situations on their hands. Past governments and state officials have done little or nothing to correct them and now they are all falling into the General's hands at about the same time. I hope he can resolve them. I don't envy his position.

Sorry, but nothing fell into General Prayut's hands.

The military turned a blind eye to the disruption and violence of the anti-government protests, chose to overthrow the elected government when it refused to step down, and assumed rule of the nation for the military. He came to power with an elected government paralyzed since mid-2013 and caused a complete disruption of government activities with his tailor made Junta government.

General Prayut's first priority as PM was to secure subjugation of the nation and only much later did he begin to address the economy left in ruins by shutdown and dismissal of the elected government. He must accept responsibility the consequences of any EU ban.

I think he will address this problem to the satisfaction of the EU, if he doesn't then the government will find other markets and the EU will be paying a lot more for their fish. By the way... Yingluck and her government weren't over-thrown by the military.

So in other words he will sell the illegally caught fish to other countries and the problem will not go away?

In essence what you're implying here is that the PM doesn't give a flying frak about illegal fishing or slavery within Thailands fishing industry? .... Thank you for confirming what most people here knew already that this is simply smoke and mirrors, and it will be business as usual if the ban comes into effect.

Excellent strategy indeed.

[Usual Suspect]

Let's all speculate what will really be happening soon..

The Junta will publish facts & figures to show the Thai fishing industry is now fully monitored & operating to E.U. standards... BUT..

all the while the ones in power that have created this mess thru' pure greed..be it human slaves on the boats, or trafficked workers within the proccessing industry..the ones that have been making money thru' peoples misery will STILL want that share of income they have become accustomed to...they are NOT gonna stop this!

There will be mega funding awarded here..not to stamp out the trade in people & undersize catches etc, but to seriously whitewash all that is STILL going

on, so the fat-cats stay plump, & the brown envelopes keep on coming in for them...TiT.

[BlueSkyCowboy]

They government has almost impossible situations on their hands. Past governments and state officials have done little or nothing to correct them and now they are all falling into the General's hands at about the same time. I hope he can resolve them. I don't envy his position.

He didn't have to take on the role of PM, a poor tradesman always blames his tools!! You reap what you sow and deflecting it back to the previous inept crowd is expected from a particular quarter. He was warned about the impact of Martial Law on the economy by REAL economists and financial experts and he dismissed these as being anti junta and that nobody understood Thainess or the situation in the country.

There is NOTHING stopping him from stepping down and bringing in a cabinet where he has the experts, the losses occurred in the Thai economy due to the coup have been Staggering if the economic experts outside of Thailand are to be believed.

Bottom line, it's happening on his watch, he and he alone brought in people like Kobakarn and put his buddies in positions they had no experience in.

Yes he inherited a mess, but he wanted that position so badly, and now has ultimate control with no accountability with article 44, he has to accept the bad shit along with the good!!

Areu telling us that he is learning from Obama ? Always blame the predecessor?