Thailand boosts cross-border trade, G2G rice deals

Thai rice (Photo: AFP/VNA)

Bangkok (VNA) – The new director-general of the Thai Ministry of Commerce’s Department of Foreign Trade, Ronnarong Phoolpipat, said on October 3 that he will give priority to promoting cross-border trade and government-to-government (G2G) rice deals with China to serve economic recovery post COVID-19.

He stressed that the agency’s most important agenda is to boost cross-border trade, as its value rose to 1.15 trillion baht (30.4 billion USD) in the first eight months of 2022, up 3.18% year-on-year.

Of the total, cross-border export rose slightly at 0.11% to 682.84 billion baht, while imports increased by 7.98% to 471.02 billion baht.

According to him, weakened baht and recovering Myanmar and Laos economies were the main factors boosting cross-border trade this year. The rising demand for energy alone has expanded Thailand’s exports to Myanmar and Laos by 100% and 115% year-on-year, respectively.

The department will also focus on G2G contracts to sell rice to China under the Thailand-China high-speed rail cooperative framework, he said, adding that under the contract, China will purchase 2 million tonnes of rice from Thailand.

So far 720,000 tonnes have already been shipped. The department will work with the Chinese government to push for the rest of the shipment as soon as possible, he affirmed./.

VNA