Lower chemical quality feared

The Thai chemical market is likely to see an influx of low-standard products from other countries once the Asean Economic Community (AEC) takes effect as screening standards for those chemicals is still poor, said an official of the Federation of Thai Industries. 

Petcharat Eksangkul, chairwoman of the FTI’s standards committee and of the safety and environment committee, urged the government to put more emphasis on enforcing the screening standards to detect low-quality chemicals being sent into the Thai market. 

She said yesterday that after the Kingdom signed free-trade agreements with many countries, a lot of low-quality chemicals were imported into the Thai market. 

Chemicals in Thailand are categorised into five segments: agricultural chemicals such as fertilisers, paints, pharmaceuticals, polymers, and cosmetics. However, the country has few standards to screen and control the import of some chemical products. As a result, Thailand has become a good market for products that cannot be marketed in other countries. 

Petcharat said some chemicals exported to Thailand were intermediate, unfinished products. These are used in production processes for such things as paints and solvents. The screening standard currently is not strong enough to control the import of these harmful chemicals. 

“Actually, the production standard of chemicals in Thailand is international because we’re an export-oriented country for chemicals. But we pay little attention to protecting our own market from low-standard chemicals. I’m concerned that once the AEC is implemented in 2015, more unqualified chemicals will flow into our country,” she said. 

She added that other Southeast Asia countries such as Vietnam were more active than Thailand on this issue, even though they do not have qualified laboratory tests to accredit chemical products as Thailand does. 

Petcharat said the problem with enacting laws or enforcing product-quality standards was that it took time to launch a standard. As well, there is concern that stringent standards would hurt small and medium-sized enterprises that lack the capital to improve their production processes. Establishing standards to control the import of dyes and bleaches used in the textile industry, for example, has taken seven years. The Thai Industrial Standards Institute is expected to implement these standards soon. 

“The Pheu Thai government is a majority government, so it is not difficult for it to focus more on improving the standards in the chemical industry to protect our country from waste and harmful chemicals,” she said. 

The chemical industry, including petrochemicals, in Thailand has a turnover of Bt1 trillion. The country imports more chemicals than it exports. The import value is about Bt481.6 billion, while the export value is Bt165 billion. 

Petcharat said Thailand would be the host of Chemspec Asia 2013, the first exhibition of its kind in Southeast Asia. The event will enable Thai SMEs to learn about technology in the chemical industry to make their production processes clean and meet international standards. 

John Lane, group sales director of Quartz Business Media (UK), the organiser of Chemspec 2013, said it expected no fewer than 100 chemical companies from all over the world to exhibit at the event, with more than 4,000 visitors attending the exhibition.