Thai private sector urged to expand investment into neighbouring countries

BANGKOK, June 7 (TNA) - The Federation of Thai Industries (FTI) has recommended that Thai private firms expand their investment projects into neighbouring countries to ease impacts on their businesses from both internal and external risk factors. FTI Deputy Chairman Thanit Sorat told reporters Thursday, after attending a seminar on in-depth investment analysis in neighbouring countries, that four close neighbouring countries, including Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam, also called the CLMV group, now have lower labour costs than Thailand by 2-3 times; so, Thai private business operators should increase their investment in the CLMV group. Thanit assessed that expanded investment projects in the neighbouring markets should help the Thai private firms to be less affected by such risk factors as Thailand's renewed political protests and rising daily minimum wages, as well as Europe's persistent debt crisis. The FTI deputy chief acknowledged that there have been signs of a slowdown in Thai exports this year, as the country's shipments of products to overseas markets grew by only 3.8 per cent on average during the January-April 2012, and that, to achieve Thailand's export growth of some 15 per cent on average this year as earlier targeted by the government, Thai shipments to overseas markets need to grow by over 23.5 per cent monthly in the rest of the year, which appears to be difficult. The FTI deputy chair projected that Thailand's export growth in 2012 should, instead, stand at about 11 per cent on average unless the European debt crisis worsened or only at about 7-9 per cent on average if the European debt woes deteriorated, as the persistent European debt problems have affected Thailand's major trading partners as the United States, Japan, China, Hong Kong and other member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and could, thus, indirectly affect the Thai economy. The FTI deputy chief suggested that Thailand timely shift to new importing markets to ease impacts from the risk factors in the coming months, saying that Thai Commerce Minister Boonsong Teriyapirom calls a meeting of Thai industrial groups in Bangkok on June 8 to discuss and assess the country's export situation. (TNA)