Thailand to focus on food, agriculture

BANGKOK, Jan 22 (TNA) -- Thailand will focus on development of food and agricultural products because the country has enough potential to further advance in the fields, said Commerce Minister Apiradi Tantraporn. Concerned agencies will cooperate on further developing the two industries, said Ms Apiradi following a joint workshop held between the ministry and Switzerland’s International Institute for Management Development (IMD) on Wednesday. The joint workshop was organised with an objective to brainstorming on Thailand’s competitiveness in five areas including government’s efficiency toward trade policy, especially on money and banking, production efficiency and management, foreign investment, innovative and high technology, and on agriculture. Ms Apiradi admitted that communication problems between the government and the private sector still exist to date, causing an obstacle in moving the country forward. She said problems which have to be resolved urgently are developing workers’ efficiency and on creating value added to agricultural products by applying advanced technology. The Commerce Ministry has received instruction from Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak to set this year’s export growth at the minimum of 5 per cent for Thailand and the latter has given five-prong strategies to drive export and investment growth, said Ms Apiradi. The five strategies are to penetrate key markets for Thai products, focusing on markets in neighbouring countries of Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar as well as cross-border trade, market development, developing online or e-commerce trade, and to put effort in introducing Thai agricultural products to the world market. She said her ministry would work out required budget need to implement these policies and would request the budget within next week. (TNA)