Thailand to export high quality goods to China

BANGKOK -- Thailand is bound to export high quality products to China in the next decade, an expert said on Sunday.

Addressing a seminar on Thai-Chinese strategic research, Thailand Trade Representative President Olarn Chaipravat said the Thai goods destined for export to China will be made as high quality products for Chinese people who make increased earnings.

"Thailand will deal in trade with China which has become the world's economic superpower by exporting high quality goods to that country, including the top-quality rice named Hom Mali (jasmine-fragrant), rubber, tapioca, palm oil, sugarcane and fruits.

"The Chinese will get richer, so they can afford to buy high quality goods," Olarn who is an adviser to Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra told the seminar co-hosted by the National Research Council of Thailand, Huaqiao University and the Thai- Chinese Culture & Economy Association.

Olarn predicted that China's economic growth will be 7.5 percent annually in the next decade, with employment of the Chinese in agricultural, industrial and service sectors speculated to rise 5 percent in a year.

Given increased incomes, those people will be looking for high quality products from exporting countries, including Thailand.

He suggested Thailand should stop making massive volumes of export goods for Western Europe or the United States and instead concentrate on quality products for China, the ASEAN community, the Middle East and Africa.

"Thailand does no longer need foreign currencies from the sales of massive products exported to the Western world. We must stop doing at any cost what we did in the past in dealing with the old West. Now we should look to the China-centered world economy.

"The Thais should begin to read China Daily and watch CCTV rather than CNN and Bloomberg for a change," he said.