Shoe plant in flood-prone Ayutthaya relocated

BANGKOK, August 21 (TNA) - ECCO, a renowned Danish brand-manufacturer of high-quality footwear, has shifted part of its production lines from the Saharattananakorn Industrial Estate in Thailand's flood-prone central Ayutthaya province to a new plant in Nong Muang district of Lopburi, another central but upstream province, in the wake of a worst flooding in decades in the country late last year. Mark Jensen, ECCO's Senior Production Manager, said on Monday that the relocation is aimed to avoid any, probably, repeated flooding after his firm faced a loss of billions of baht from late last year's massive flooding, with large machines badly damaged and exports to overseas markets considerably affected. Jensen said, however, that ECCO has kept some of its production lines at the Saharattananakorn Industrial Estate in Ayutthaya and at another industrial estate in Pichit province in the Lower Thai North. According to the senior manager, ECCO is confident in the Thai government's measures to prevent and to cope with any repeated flooding at local industrial sites, including the construction of permanent dykes, and has, therefore, maintained part of its production lines at the Saharattananakhon Industrial Estate. The ECCO senior manager noted that his firm would consider to move out all its production lines from the Saharattananakhon Industrial Estate in Ayutthaya only that the industrial site was, again, submerged by floodwater over the next five years. (TNA)