Shopping sprees lively nationwide on eve of Chinese New Year

BANGKOK, February 8 (TNA) - Shopping sprees actively continue in all regions of Thailand, including border areas, on the eves of the Chinese New Year 2013. In the eastern Chantaburi province, Chinese Cambodians are crossing the border to buy goods and transport them back to their homeland, as a Thai-Cambodian trade association in the province acknowledged on Friday that the value of border trade during the ongoing Chinese New Year festival has risen by over 10 million baht from the amount last year, thanks to more developed land transportation in neighbouring Cambodia. In the northeastern Nakhon Phanom province, Lao people are also crossing the border to buy Chinese New Year worship goods at border markets in many districts, raising the prices of vegetables, fruits and red garments by 20-30 per cent at the moment, as provincial authorities will organize Chinese-Thai-Lao-Vietnamese New Year celebrations from February 10-13. In the Northern Chiang Rai province, shoppers are flocking into the Thesaban 1 market to buy worship products, boosting their prices by about 20 per cent at the moment. Even in Yala province in the violence-plagued Thai far South, the Pimolchai market in the Nakhon Yala Municipality, the biggest fresh market in the deep South, is also packed with Chinese-blooded shoppers in Yala and nearby provinces, causing traffic jams; while police and soldiers have stepped up security measures as a precaution to prevent any untoward incident during the ongoing Chinese New Year festivity. (TNA)