Nakhon Phanom holds border trade expo

NAKHON PHANOM, May 14 (TNA) -- Thailand's Department of Foreign Trade (DFT) is organising an border trade expo at the border province of Nakhon Phanom, aiming to connect Thai and neighbouring countries' trade and investment with southern China. Permanent Secretary for Commerce Ms Chutima Bunyapraphasara said the Commerce Ministry has joined forces with the group of three upper northeastern provinces to create a project to promote and expand border trade with neighbouring countries to link with southern China. The event is held from May 12-14 in Nakhon Phanom province, which is attended by over 500 businessmen from Thailand, Lao PDR and China, where Laos district heads have also held talks with their Thai counterparts on future cooperation on trade, investment and logistics of both sides' private sector. The DFT has, meanwhile, organised over 300 booths filled with Thai quality products to attract visitors from within the area and nearby locations to shop over 30,000 goods, where over 20 million baht is also expecting to be generated at the event alone, which the department believes would ensure that border trade would reach 1.7 trillion baht as targeted this year. The Commerce Ministry has also planned to organise similar events to all border provinces to help improve the domestic economy. (TNA)