CP Vice Chair:Cluster approach will boost SMEs competitiveness

BANGKOK, April 11 (TNA) - The Charoen Pokphand (CP Group), a most leading Thai agro-industrial conglomerate, has urged the government to develop an industrial cluster for Thailand’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and to set up a single standard for each industry to handle emerging risk factors associated with regional business liberalization under the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by 2015. CP Vice Chairman Ajva Taulananda on Tuesday pointed out that Thai SMEs would face both greater opportunities and risks when the single business community of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations or ASEAN is formed by 2015; so, local SMEs need to work together to form the industrial cluster and to invite successful companies to manage the cluster for overall local SMEs to survive amid greater competition in the then regional integration. The CP Vice Chair suggested that local SMEs can either stay independent or join forces with larger companies and become part of the production chain to cope with the larger, regionally-borderless markets, urging local SMEs who wish to invest in ASEAN to also study market potential and avoid certain businesses protected for locals. The CP Vice Chair said that focus should also be shifted to areas where consumers have high purchasing power and products and services quality should be standout from the rest. The Thai Chamber of Commerce, in the mean time, has pledged to expedite efforts to develop clusters and standardized products and services to meet international demand once the AEC kicks start by 2015. (TNA)