Minister to meet Thai commercial attachés on Feb 10

BANGKOK, February 8 (TNA) - Commerce Minister Boonsong Teriyapirom and his deputy, Poom Sarapol, who supervises the ministry's Department of Export Promotion, will meet Thai commercial attachés from around the world in Bangkok on February 10 to review and discuss Thailand's export potential and marketing campaigns to realize the country's export growth of at least 15 per cent this year as officially targeted. Department of Export Promotion Director-General Nanthawan Sakuntanak said that the commerce minister and his deputy have called the meeting, as several local manufacturers lost parts of their production capacities to massive flooding in the country late last year and their productivity should not be fully restored in the first quarter of this year, which will likely reduce Thailand's overall export growth to 1-5 per cent during the January-March 2012 period. Nanthawan acknowledged that the ongoing European debt crisis should also reduce overseas demand for Thai products, but she believes that European demand for Thai food and fashion products will remain high, and that Thailand will be conducting marketing campaigns to maintain its exports to Europe and the United States, the country's two traditional major export markets; while, in the meantime, is expanding Thai exports to emerging markets in Asia, Latin America, Russia and Africa. (TNA)