Thailand explores trade opportunities amid escalating US-China trade war

BANGKOK, May 8 (TNA) - The Thai government, through the Ministry of Commerce, is exploring trade opportunities for the country's exporters amid the escalating trade war between the United States and China. Deputy Commerce Minister Chutima Bunyapraphasara told journalists on Wednesday that she believed there would be more rooms for Thai exports to both the US and the Chinese economies amid the current trade war between the two immense markets. Besides, several other rival exporting countries may import more raw materials from Thailand as they are, like the Thai Kingdom, exploring opportunities in new markets. Chutima's remarks were in response to a latest US move on imposing an increased tariff of up to 25 per cent, the highest level, against imported products from China, from 10 per cent earlier. Chutima stated that over the past one year when Washington and Beijing had imposed tit-for-tat import tariffs against each other, Thailand could ship more goods to the US market, worth about 11 billion US dollars, although Thai exports to the Chinese market dropped by about 13 billion US dollars and overall Thai exports declined by 779 million US dollars, or 0.3 per cent of the country's total export value of about 225 billion US dollars during the same period. The deputy minister acknowledged the difference of about 2 billion US dollar between an increase in Thai exports to the United States and a drop in the shipments of Thai goods to China over the past year shows that there are still more rooms for Thailand to export goods to both the immense Chinese and the US markets in the coming months. The deputy minister said her ministry is also closely following up any new announcement by Washington on its increased tariffs against particular imported products from China, which may be those in the food, leather, travel and furniture categories, in order to explore opportunities for Thai exporters and to boost Thai exports later this year. According to the deputy minister, her ministry's Department of International Trade Promotion is also altering its marketing plans for different categories of Thai exports to suit major and minor importing markets more specifically, along with preparing for organizing a meeting with heads of her ministry's international trade promotion offices globally late this month to evaluate impacts from the escalating trade war between the United States and China on the Thai economy and to discuss the appropriate measures to cope with the negative impacts. (TNA)