Thailand's export sector has lost competitiveness in global markets, with the market share of rice shipments falling by more than 50% over the past 20 years, according to the Bank of Thailand (Photo: thailand.go.th) Bangkok (VNA) - Thailand's export sector has lost competitiveness in global markets, with the market shareof rice shipments falling by more than 50% over the past 20 years, according tothe Bank of Thailand (BoT).
Obstacles in the export andmanufacturing sectors are having a more discernible impact on the Thai economy, the central bank said in the latest report.
It noted that amongthe products that dented export value growth last year, more than 70% recordeddeclining competitiveness and other structural headwinds.
According to the edited minutes of the BoT's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting on February 7, agricultural products such asrice reported a lower market share, from 25% in 2003 to 13% at present. Petrochemical products andhard disk drives were also facing many challenges.
Thailand's electronics exportgrowth averaged only 4% over the past decade, well below its regional peerssuch as Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia, which posted export growth of37%, 14% and 10%, respectively.
Manufacturing of goods solddomestically also faced more intense competition from imports. The share of imports fromChina increased from 5% to 9% over the same period.
In related news, DeputyCommerce Minister Napintorn Srisunpang said on February 22 that Thailand needsto diversify its agricultural exports as it currently relies on a handful ofitems and only a few overseas markets.
He cited data that showed the country’stop five farm products constituted over 87% of its agricultural exports, whileas much as 42% of Thai farm products were exported to China.
Napintorn suggested that Thailandshould diversify its agriculture export products and markets to help reduce therisk from too much reliance on a handful of export products and markets.
He pointedto the need for expanding agricultural output through research and technologyas well as restructuring exports from the farm sector to ensure a diversity ofproducts, and exploring new export markets while retaining existing marketslike the US, China, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries.
Thailand’s agriculturalexports totalled 49.2 billion USD last year, representing 17.3% of all Thaiexports with a total value of 284.5 billion USD.
He cited data released by theCommerce Ministry’s Trade Policy and Strategy Office which shows that farmproduce accounted for 9.4% and processed agricultural products 7.9%. The deputy minister notedthat the agricultural sector represented only 9% of the country's total grossdomestic product (GDP), while farmers make up 46% of Thailand’s population./.
