Thai Blue-Chip Eyes Cambodia

Cambodia is one of the potential choices for a blue chip Thailand-based company’s expansion into the Asean region, according to the Bangkok Post yesterday. Two Saha Group subsidiaries, Thai Wacoal Plc and President Bakery Plc, have announced a combined 2.4-billion-baht (about $68.46 million) investment to expand domestically and in Asean this year, while Thai Wacoal, the maker of Wacoal lingerie, is spending 900 million baht (about $25.67 million), the biggest outlay in its 46-year history, the report said.

“Vietnam and Cambodia are two potential choices. If the plan is finalized, the company will spend about 1 billion baht (about $28.52 million) on the new Asean factory,” the report pointed out. Meanwhile, Petcharat Anantawichai, director and senior manager of accounting and finance at President Bakery Plc, told the newspaper that the company is interested in setting up a factory in an Asean country to increase its export sales, which currently account for only one percent of total sales.

Jiranun Wongmongkol, the director of the foreign trade office at the Royal Thai Embassy in Phnom Penh, said: “Our government is urging all Thai traders to strengthen the quality of their products and promote new ones for Cambodia to import. “We hope to also expand in the capital and to Cambodia’s provinces to increase the trade volume,” added Ms. Jiranun. “Thai products have gained about a 40 percent market share in Cambodia.”

The senior Thai Embassy official pointed out that after studying the potential in neighboring countries such as Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar, Thailand concluded that Cambodia – with annual GDP growth of 7.7 percent over the past decade – had the strongest potential. Cambodia is Thailand’s 22nd largest trading partner and the eighth largest in Asean. In the first four months of this year, the trade volume between Thailand and Cambodia reached about $1.7 billion.

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