Promising prospect for Thailand's exports of supplementary protein food products to Japan

BANGKOK, May 10 (TNA) - The Thai Ministry of Commerce reports that the country's exports of supplementary protein food products for women and the elderly to the Japanese market has a promising prospect due to a high demand. Chantira Jimreivat Vivatrat, Director-General of the ministry's Department of International Trade Promotion, told journalists on Thursday that she has been informed of the steadily growing market of the Thai products by her department's overseas office in Tokyo, buoyed by the increasing popularity among health-conscious women who normally take physical exercises by playing yoga and sports and the elderly whose bodies need sufficient protein. Chantira suggested that Thai producers and exporters of the supplementary protein food products expand their shipments to the Japanese market, including those made from livestocks, brown rice, beans and plants, or ship raw materials to Japanese producers. The Fuji-Keizai Group, a leading Japanese marketing and research consulting firm, has forecast, meanwhile, that the value of the supplementary protein food products in the Japanese market should reach about 257 billion yen or 73 billion baht by 2022, boosted partly by Tokyo's host of the 2020 Summer Olympics. Thailand's official figures show that bilateral trade between Bangkok and Tokyo stood about 1.85 trillion baht last year, the third highest after the country's two-way trade with China and the United States, with the Thai side facing a trade deficit of about 342.53 billion baht. (TNA)