Inundated Thai industrial Sites To Resume Operations By Dec 2011

BANGKOK, November (TNA) - Thai Public Health Minister Wittaya Buranasiri said Sunday he believes that Thailand's several flooded industrial sites, particularly those in the central Ayutthaya and Pathum Thani Provinces, will resume operations by next month. Wittaya told reporters after inspecting the inundated industrial sites in Ayutthaya that floodwater in most of the provincial industrial sites has been receding by over one metres, leaving only some sites which have remained submerged by 1.20-2-metre floodwater. Wittaya, who was accompanied by Deputy Ayutthaya Governor Tawee Naritsirikul, chief of a working group tasked with rehabilitating the provincial flood-affected industrial sites, revealed that he also met several business operators of Ayutthaya's flooded industrial sites and most of whom affirmed that they will not lay off their workers. The public health minister insisted that there have been no residues of chemical substances found in the flooded industrial sites, and that several inundated industrial plants have timely removed their machines to high grounds and will immediately resume their production once the flooding recedes; so, total damage to the inundated industrial sites will not reach 700-800 billion baht as earlier speculated. According to the public health minister, he has also liaised with Labour Minister Phadermchai Sasomsab on providing financial support to workers whose firms have been affected by floods, through the Ministry of Labour's Social Security Fund (SSF). (TNA)