August 20, 2004

 

 

Thailand's Farm Exports To Perform Well Despite Setbacks

 

Despite bird-flu outbreaks and anti-dumping levies on shrimp, Thailand's chief farm exports will continue to perform well, exporters and manufacturers said yesterday.

 

At a Commerce Ministry seminar on "The Future of Thai Agriculture Goods", agricultural exporters and manufacturers agreed that there was still high demand for Thailand's main crops, including rice, shrimp, chicken and palm oil.

 

While they acknowledged that high oil prices would hurt demand, the exporters said non-trade barriers posed the tougher obstacle.

 

Therefore Thai farmers should focus more on technology and reducing production costs to strengthen export competitiveness, they said.

 

Somsak Paneetatayasai, president of the Thai Shrimp Association, said the United States' preliminary anti-dumping duty of 6.39 per cent on shrimp from Thailand would actually create export opportunities for the Kingdom.

 

Export rivals China, India, Ecuador, Brazil and Vietnam are being charged between 7.30 and 49.09 per cent. Thus US importers would place more orders with Thailand.

 

Nevertheless, Somsak said that shrimpers should not neglect exploring new markets.

 

"The high export price will convince our export rivals to access other markets, such as Japan and the European Union," he said, noting that Thailand's share of those markets could fall.

 

Somsak warned that the anti-dumping measures could prompt some small exporting countries to try to circumvent the system by importing cheap shrimp from the levied nations for re-export to the US.

 

The Internal Trade Department has forecast total shrimp exports to reach 289,700 tons in 2008, compared with a projected 238,300 tons this year.

 

Frozen shrimp is just one Thai farm product dominating the world market. The US Department of Agriculture has named Thailand the world's biggest exporter of rice, tapioca products, rubber and canned pineapple.

 

Dr Anan Sirimongkolkasem, president of the Thai Broiler Processing Exporters Association, said the country was trying to maintain an export volume of 17,000 tons per month through the end of this year.

 

Exports dropped sharply to 13,000 tons in June from 29,000 in January due to the bird flu.  Anan warned chicken breeders to closely monitor the situation to avoid further risk.

 

Total export volume is projected to achieve 200,000 tons and increase to 300,000 tons in the next five years.

 

"The damage from the bird-flu virus will be a problem for Thailand's chicken industry for another two to three years," Anan said.