Exporters blasts lack of govt action

“Thai exports have shown sluggishness since last month because the stronger baht is damaging the country’s export competitiveness. But the government has not done anything to rein in the baht and has let it get stronger, hurting the trading sector,” Vallop Vitanakorn, vice chairman of the TNSC, said yesterday.
The Commerce Ministry plans to meet with representatives of the private sector after Songkran to discuss how to tackle the baht’s scaling of new heights. The TNSC’s export-growth forecast is lower than the ministry’s target of 8-9 per cent.
The baht continued its uptrend, gaining 0.42 per cent to 28.89 per US dollar yesterday, according to the Bank of Thailand.
For three straight days, the baht has hit highs not seen since July 1997, when the currency was floated.
Vallop said government agencies had no new plan to promote exports, but only wanted to drive shipments to Asean and new markets. However, Asean markets rely on imports of semi-finished goods and raw materials, so Thai shipments to Asean would not increase as much as the government had expected.

TOUGH TIME
Exporters are having a tough time competing with other countries because they cannot raise their prices to offset the baht’s strength.
With the global economy slowing down, buyers will not accept price hikes from exporters, he said. The government needs to find urgent measures to control the baht’s rapid strengthening, otherwise shipments will be seriously affected.
Pornsilp Patcharintanakul, vice chairman of the Thai Chamber of Commerce, said the government needed to brake the baht’s appreciation immediately as it was a major problem hurting the export sector.
“The baht has gone up a lot … compared with [the currencies of] export rivals, mainly Vietnam and Malaysia. The problem is not about export-promotion plans, but about the currency’s value. The Bank of Thailand and the government need to listen more to the private sector and find effective measures to curb the baht’s ascension,” he said.
Commerce Minister Boonsong Teriyapirom said the ministry would next week meet with the joint standing committee of the private sector to discuss the baht problem and brainstorm ways to deal with it. The meeting has been postponed from early this month.