Thai FM meets visiting Japanese minister

BANGKOK, May 4 (TNA) - Thai Foreign Minister Surapong Tovichakchaikul met Shozaburo Jimi, the visiting Japanese State Minister in charge of financial and postal issues, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Bangkok on Friday, during which issues related to bilateral relations between Bangkok and Tokyo and water management were raised. After the half an hour talks, Dam-rong Khrai-khruan, Deputy Director-General of the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Department of Information, told reporters that the Japanese minister extended gratitude for Thailand’s assistance in the wake of a massive earthquake and tsunami in Japan in March 2011; while the Thai minister thanked Japan for granting some 8 billion yen through the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to support relief programs after a flooding crisis in Thailand late last year. Damrong said Surapong also told the Japanese minister that Thailand would like Japan, China and South Korea to help prevent drought in the Greater Mekong sub-region (GMS). Damrong acknowledged that Japan is interested in water management, high-speed railway and digital cable development in Thailand and the visiting Japanese minister referred to Japan’s earth and weather remote sensing technology which can support water management in Thailand. Meanwhile, Weerapong Chaiperm, Governor of the Industrial Estate Authority of Thailand (IEAT), told journalists that the IEAT is, however, watching out for possible drought problems at five Thai industrial estates in the East, namely Map Ta Phut, Phadaeng, Hemaraj Eastern Seaboard, Asia and RIL industrial sites, after water at the local Dok Klai, Pra-sae and Nong Pla-lai Reservoirs amounted to 150 million cubic meters or accounted for only half of their combined full capacity last month, the level of which was close to the amount in April 2004 which led to a drought crisis in 2005 when the combined reserved water accounted for as low as 15 per cent of its full capacity. (TNA)