‘Thailand too dependent on a few farm export items and markets’

He said that the country’s top five farm products constituted over 87% of its agricultural exports, while as much as 42% of Thai farm products were exported to China.

“Thailand relies on a limited number of markets for our agricultural exports, particularly China, which imports as much as 42% of all Thai farm exports,” Napintorn said.

He suggested that Thailand should diversify its agriculture export products and markets to help reduce the risk from too much reliance on a handful of export products and markets.

The deputy minister pointed to the need for expanding agricultural output through research and technology. Exports from the farm sector should also be restructured to ensure a diversity of products, and new export markets should be discovered while the existing markets like the US, China, and ASEAN countries should be retained, he said.

Thailand’s agricultural exports totalled US$49.2 billion (1.69 trillion baht) last year, representing 17.3% of all Thai exports with a total value of US$284.5 billion.

Of all exports, farm produce accounted for 9.4% and processed agricultural products 7.9%, according to Napintorn, citing data from the Commerce Ministry’s Trade Policy and Strategy Office.

Export of farm produce totalled $26.8 billion (920 billion baht) last year, a growth of 0.2% year on year, while exports of agricultural products totalled $22.4 billion (770 billion baht), down 1.7% year on year, according to the Commerce Ministry.

The deputy minister said the agricultural sector represented only 9% of the country's total gross domestic product (GDP), while farmers make up 46% of Thailand’s population.

China was the largest importer of Thai farm products last year, with a total value of $11.2 billion, representing 42% of all agricultural exports from Thailand. It was followed by Japan $3.2 billion (12%), the United States $1.5 billion (5.6%), Malaysia $1.1 billion (4.4%), and Indonesia $940.1 million (3.5%).

Those five countries imported as much as 67.5% of all Thai farm products exported last year.

The five top export items of farm products were fruits, rice, chicken meat, cassava, and rubber, representing 87.7% of the total value of agricultural product exports.

Last year’s top five groups of industrial agricultural products, representing 61.9% of all exports from the agricultural sector, were canned and processed seafood, sugar, animal feeds, wheat-based products and ready-to-eat food, and beverages.

The United Kingdom last year saw the highest expansion among the export markets of Thailand’s farm products, growing as much as 113.7% from a year earlier. It was followed by the Philippines (63.1%), South Africa (35.4%), Laos (18.5%), and Singapore (11%).

Fresh chicken eggs saw the largest growth among farm product exports last year, with a 72.4% increase from a year earlier, followed by rice (29.3%), fruits (22.8%), meats and edible animal parts (6.2%), and prawns for breeding (6%).

Among industrial agricultural goods exported last year, cocoa and flavourings saw the biggest growth of 25.6%, followed by canned or processed vegetables (19.2%), sugar (10%), ice cream (7.3%), and food seasonings (7.1%).