Thailand removed from Notorious Markets Watchlist

BANGKOK, Jan 16 (TNA) -- The Ministry of Commerce confirms that Thailand has been excluded from the US recent Notorious Markets watchlist. Commerce Minister Sontirat Sontijirawong announced on Monday that as of January 11 of this year the US Trade Representative (USTR) made public the new reviewed list of intellectual property defaulters for 2017 titled Out-of-Cycle Review of Notorious Markets which includes Physical and Online Markets. Thailand, for the first time in 10 years, has been removed from the list. Between 2007-2016 Thailand was categorised as one the the 13 most Notorious Markets in the world. These included Panthip Plaza, Klong Thom, Saphan Lek, Ban Moh trade districts, Chattuchak weekend market, MBK Shopping Centre, Wittayu weekend market, markets along Sukhumvit Soi 3-19 and Patpong district. Other markets outside Bangkok included Patong and Karon beaches in Phuket province, IT City in Pattaya and Roang Klua Market in Sa Kaeo province. All these locations have been tackled and policed by successful official action. Records indicate that 700 cases of arrests have been made at all these Notorious Markets resulting in nearly 150,000 items seized between January and September 2017. As a result only MBK still remain on the Notorious Markets list in previous announcement before all were cleared in the latest announcement. Mr Sontirat confirmed that on top of the exclusion of most of the black markets from the US Notorious Markets List, the USTR also publicly applauded the efforts of the administration under Prime Minister Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha in directly tackling and quickly resolving the problem resulting in profound results as early as 2017. (TNA)