They were unhappy about Laos hiking the goods-delivering parking fee to Bt1,690 from the usual rate of Bt1,600 per truck without advance notice.

It was also reported that Laotian officials had stopped 62 fruit-delivery trucks at the Huai Sai goods-delivery parking lots hence they couldn’t go onwards to China.

The group, which blocked the border pass with 10 trucks resulting in traffic jams, later agreed to disperse and return to Thailand, after those 62 truckers agreed to pay Bt530 each as parking fee, while the Laotian authority waived the additional Bt1,100 fee for now.

Boonsong also took up their four-point demand to negotiate with Laos’ Bo Kaew provincial authority. They were: Laos should collect all fees at a one-stop service centre to prevent redundancy; the use of the R3A highway should be standardised; any change in tax or fee collection should be notified to the Thai authority in writing; the Thai authority should have stricter checks of Thai people’s passports and vehicles used to deliver food through Laos to prevent them being prosecuted by Laotian officials.

An informed source reported that the business operators’ expense for delivery of goods to China through Laos should be about Bt6,000 per truck but the additional fees there and at several more spots made it a total of Bt10,820 per truck.