“Although the global economy and some trading partners such as China are slowing down, opportunities await for us [officials and exporters] to promote more trade.

“The country needs to deepen its marketing strategy to focus on particular markets and the demands of each group of consumers,” he said.

After meeting with 61 representatives of Thai Trade Offices overseas, Somkid said that despite many negative factors, Thailand should not lower its export working target, which is set at 5-per-cent expansion to US$225 billion (Bt8.1 billion).

He instructed trade officials to penetrate markets with high purchasing power, mainly mainland China, Hong Kong, India and Japan, plus Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.

Although China’s economy has been expanding more slowly, this market still has strong purchasing power as people there have strong demand for many goods and services from Thailand.

To penetrate this market, Thailand needs to increase human resources to work on the export campaign and reach the target group of customers. For instance, Thailand now has only six officials in China.

More officials, or local staff, are needed to work on the market-penetration strategy to drive trade in each market, Somkid said.

Reducing the number of officers or cutting the export-promotion budget is useless, as exports are still the country’s key economic engine. Thailand needs to inject more money into driving export growth, he said.

Thailand should also draw up a long-term export agenda to ensure sustainable growth in trade and promote not only trade, but also service businesses and outward investment.

Export promotion is not only the Commerce Ministry’s responsibility, but also other ministries and the private sector, he said. The Information and Communications Technology Ministry needs to work closely with the Commerce Ministry in facilitating more trade in the cyber world.

The ICT Ministry will set up an e-commerce trading centre in three months for marketing Thai goods online.

According to the ICT Ministry, e-commerce trade in Thailand was worth Bt2.1 trillion last year.

The establishment of Thai grocery stores abroad should be encouraged to increase the sales of agricultural products, One Tambon One Product wares and One SME merchandise, as the shops can be centres for distributing Thai goods to local consumers in each market, Somkid said.

Many Thai goods, especially foods, can be promoted more in many countries, mainly India, Japan and countries in Asean.

Commerce Minister Apiradi Tantraporn said the ministry would next week ask for an additional budget allocation of Bt700 million from the Cabinet for setting up a distribution centre for agricultural products under a three-year plan.

The project aims to reduce the role of middlemen and directly link farmers to consumers.

Initially, the government will be a facilitator in supporting soft loans, developing investment projects and providing information. It will allow a company to operate the distribution centre.

The provinces eyed for locating the distribution centre, warehouses and cold-storage facilities are engaged in border crop trading, such as Udon Ratchathani, Ratchaburi, Nakhon Sri Thammarat, Chiang Rai and Chantaburi.