Thailand to hold talks with Indonesia on Longan trade

Bangkok, January 18 (TNA) - Thai authorities will hold talks with their Indonesian counterparts on Jakarta's new restriction on longan imports this year. Oramon Saptaweetham, Acting Director-General of the Department of Trade Negotiations, under the Thai Ministry of Commerce, told journalists on Thursday that Commerce Minister Sontirat Sontijirawong (สนธิรัตน์ สนธิจิรวงศ์) has assigned her department to discuss and work together with other relevant public and private agencies to either find options or ease impacts from a recent decision of the Indonesian government on a ban on longan imports during July-August. "The Indonesian Ministry of Agriculture recently issued a new regulation under which imports of horticultural crops are banned during specific periods in 2018 when the supplies of the same Indonesian crops come out on the domestic market, directly affecting exports of Thai longan as the Thai supplies normally come out during July-August, the same period of the Indonesian produce", Oramon explained. The senior official acknowledged that Indonesia is the second largest importing market of Thai longan, after China, but the world's largest archipelagic country has imported the largest amount of Thai longan over the past several years, with its imports of Thai longan in 2016 alone reaching nearly 55 million kilograms, worth 50.44 million US dollars, and its imports of the Thai fruit during the first 11 months of 2017 standing 88.4 million kilograms, worth 75.74 million US dollars. Besides, Indonesia is Thailand's sixth largest trading partner on the world market and third largest in the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), after Malaysia and Singapore. According to the senior official, bilateral trade between Indonesia and Thailand during 2012-2016 stood at about 16.78 billion dollars annually on average and stood at about 14.93 billion US dollars during the first 11 months of 2017. The senior official said a joint meeting recently between her department and other relevant agencies, including the Thai Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives and the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs, initially agreed that her ministry and the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs will ask the Indonesian side in various occasions to review the new regulation, while her ministry and the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives will help ease the impact on local longan growers by finding alternative markets for them and supporting them to grow off-season produce and resort to innovative technologies to expand their longan products with upgraded quality. (TNA)