Commercial envoys worldwide urged to boost Thai exports

BANGKOK, May 20 (TNA) - The Ministry of Commerce has urged Thai commercial envoys worldwide to help boost Thai exports so that the country's export growth meets an official target of 8-9 per cent in 2013. Srirat Rastapana, Director-General of the ministry’s Department of International Trade Promotion, told journalists on Monday that she made the call at a meeting held earlier in the day with visiting chiefs of Thailand's trade promotion offices from 62 countries worldwide. Srirat acknowledged that developments and problems of Thai exports to each region of the world were also evaluated, with an emphasis on the remaining vulnerable European, Japanese and US markets, and that the Thai commercial envoys agreed the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and other Asian economies should become new potential export markets for Thai products to help boost Thailand's export growth to meet the government's target of 8-9 per cent. With the Thai baht starting to depreciate and becoming more stable together with the recovering world economy, the senior official noted that a downward revision of Thailand's targeted export growth in 2013 would not be needed if the situation in the second half of this year was improving. (TNA)