Deputy Commerce Minister Suvit Maesincee said that although achieving the 5-per-cent goal is extremely unlikely now, the ministry would retain it as as a working target.

“Exports will not be worse than last year, when they were down by 5.7 per cent. The country could achieve about 2.5-per-cent growth in the best-case scenario, or at worst face flat growth or only a slight decline,” he said.

The ministry has calculated that to achieve 2.5-per-cent growth, export value would have to be at least US$18.5 billion (Bt660 billion) in each of the remaining months.

The ministry reported export value in the first four months was down by 1.24 per cent year on year to $69.37 billion.

Exports in April were valued at $15.54 billion, down by 8 per cent year on year, while imports dropped by 14.92 per cent to $14.82 billion. Imports in the first four months dropped 12.73 per cent to $60.46 billion. Thailand locked in a trade surplus of $8.9 billion in the January-to-April period.

The decline in export value last month was largely due to lower shipments of both industrial and agricultural products, while April had a number of long holiday periods interrupting export-import transactions.

If volatile gold and oil exports are excluded, shipments last month declined 6.2 per cent year on year.

Thailand’s export sector currently relies heavily on the global economy, which is still unpredictable. However, Suvit said that under the government’s restructuring plan, the sector should |be able to rely on less unpredictable factors.

He added that despite declining exports last month, Thai trading still had good momentum. The import of raw materials and machinery to support the export sector has increased, showing that the manufacturing sector is expanding, which should result in more exports in the future.

In addition, the Board of Investment reported that the value of applications for BOI privileges would be worth about Bt450 billion this year after surging past Bt200 billion in the first four months .

New foreign direct investment in the first four months was valued at Bt200.52 billion, an increase of 234 per cent compared with the same period last year, the BOI said. A total of 398 projects soughtBOI privileges between January and April, up 84 per cent year on year.

Meanwhile, the Thai Industries Sentiment Index (TISI) fell to 85.0 in April from 86.7 in the previous month, given long holidays and drought. Scores below 100 indicate low sentiment.

Chen Namchaisiri, chairman of the Federation of Thai Industries, said that there were fewer business days than normal in April, which led to less production capacity, particularly in large industries like electrical appliances and electronics, cement, plastics and petrochemicals.

Besides, business operators were concerned that appreciation of the baht could negatively affect export competitiveness, and drought could lead to shortages of raw materials and consequent higher production costs in the agricultural-product industry.

The TISI was based on a survey of 1,212 business operators last month.

The three-month TISI also inched down to 97.2 in April from 98.3 a month earlier on business operators’ concern over the slow recovery in purchasing power in the region, a likely rise in local fuel prices, foreign-exchange volatility and trade barriers, particularly non-tariff measures.

In April, automobile production |rose 11.51 per cent year on year to |138,237 units, according to Surapong Paisitpattanapong, spokesman for the FTI’s Automotive Industry Club.

From January to April, total auto production amounted to 645,111 units, down 0.52 per cent year on year.

Auto export value increased 10.18 per cent year on year to Bt43.08 billion in April. However, the number of vehicles exported last month edged down 2 per cent to 80,491 on the back of fewer eco-car exports. However, there was a 126-per-cent surge in the value of exports of pickup passenger vehicles due to their higher prices.

In the January-April period, auto export value jumped 11.1 per cent to Bt206.64 billion. However, unit exports fell 5.39 per cent year on year to 388,251.

Somkiat Makcayathorn, honorary president of the Thai Rice Packers Association and managing director of Patum Rice Mill and Granary, said rice packers were facing higher costs due to higher prices of paddy rice in the dry season.

The price of packed rice has increased by about Bt5-7.50 per 5-kilogram pack since the beginning of this year, but is still under the government’s official ceiling, he said. However, the supply of rice continues to drop, the price could increase in the third or fourth quarter of the year, Somkiat said. However, rice packers will not immediately increase retail prices as there are still enough stocks to last until September.

He said rice packers had also faced higher costs after modern traders began charging them 10-35 per cent higher entrance fees to sell their products in the supermarkets. Somkiat said rice packers would ask the Commerce Ministry to call for a meeting between rice packers and modern traders to make the entrance fees more fair.According to the association, the price of white paddy rice has increased from Bt7,500-Bt8,000 per tonne early this year to Bt9,000-Bt9,500 per tonne at present, while the cost of packed rice was up from Bt12,000-Bt12,500 per tonne to Bt14,000-Bt14,500 per tonne.

Exports to Africa

Somkiat said that although the government had recently opened bidding for rice in its stockpiles, it should not affect the domestic market as this rice would be shipped to African countries.

Manta Kitprasert, president of the Thai Rice Mills Association, said the drought would force rice prices higher in the near future.

“Rice farmers may not benefit much from the higher price as they have faced losses from the previous harvest season due to the shortage of water. Rice millers have also faced problems about liquidity as they could not find rice for milling and doing businesses,” he said.

Meanwhile, despite the higher cost of palm fruit, the Internal Trade Department will not allow an increase in the retail price of cooking palm oil, which is limited at Bt42 per litre bottle. Wiboonlasana Ruamraksa, director-general of the department, said palm-oil refineries had buffer stocks amounting to about 240,000 tonnes, so a price increase was not warranted.

She said enterprises should be able to shoulder higher costs of production as more palm fruit would enter the market in two months and that would lower its price.

Currently, palm fruit is traded at Bt5-5.5 per kilogram.

With the influx of Korean culture through various entertainment outlets, Thai audiences are able to fantasise about becoming TV stars themselves by opting to look like their favourite star by undergoing plastic surgery in South Korea. And this need has offered a huge opportunity to top hospitals in Seoul’s Gangnum district.

“With the rising trend of plastic surgery in the country, we believe that in general, we will see a rise of at least 20 per cent in Thai plastic surgery patients,” Tapaphon Jongrugsak, manager of Jewerly Medical Group, a member of the South Korean Jewerly Plastic Surgery, told The Nation.

Unfortunately, due to patients’ confidentiality requirements, there are no exact official statistics on the number of Thais who have visited South Korea for plastic surgery.

Apart from the Korean wave, which has made plastic surgery in South Korea so popular, Tapaphon suggested that rising plastic surgery prices and scandals in the Kingdom were the other key factor taking Thais to Seoul for beauty-enhancement services.

‘Bad jobs’

“Over the past few decades, local consumers have learned a lesson from the many bad jobs done cheaply by poor quality surgeons. The perception of plastic surgery now is that of high-value investment for more satisfactory returns,” Tapaphon explained.

The Jewerly Medical Group is one of the top plastic surgery hospitals that has made its presence felt in Thailand, while other top five hospitals, including Grand Plastic Surgery and ID Hospital, are also providing consultancy services via overseas hotlines and website, but only in Thai.

Meanwhile, JW Plastic Surgery, another top-ranking beauty clinic from South Korea, opened its first branch in Bangkok recently.

“Plastic surgery is now well received by Thai consumers. [It] is almost becoming a new norm in society,” Aliza Inthaseni, chief executive officer of Prime Medica Group, a partner of JW Plastic Surgery, said.

She added that under this partnership, which also covers Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar, her company aims to open two more branches in the Kingdom this year. Each JW Plastic Surgery clinic requires an investment of at least Bt20 million, and will provide cosmetic surgery for the nose, face, eyes and breasts by well-trained Thai doctors. The standard at these clinics will be the same as that in South Korea.

Prime Medica Group also hopes to have some 30 to 50 plastic surgery patients this year, and aims to transfer some Thai patients and those from neighbouring countries for procedures in South Korea.

Apart from aggressively expanding private hospitals overseas, the South Korean government is also attracting international medical tourists by offering a full tax refund. According to the Health and Welfare Ministry, foreign patients undergoing cosmetic surgery in South Korea from April 1 until March 31, 2017 will get a full refund of the 10-per-cent value-added tax.

The cosmetic and plastic surgery operations covered include double eye-lid, rhinoplasty, breast surgery (reduction/augmentation), liposuction, facelift, facial bone contouring, teeth whitening, laminate, gingivoplasty, orthognathic surgery among others.

Seoul TouchUp, a South Korean government-approved medical tourism agency, said on its official website that judging from the growth in medical tourism, the popularity of plastic surgery in South Korea would continue to rise, at least until 2020.

IUU fishing is about to become much more difficult once the Port State Measures Agreement (PSMA), a ground-breaking international accord championed by the FAO, takes force early next month.

Last week FAO announced that 29 member states and the European Union had formally deposited their instruments of adherence, and the count down to the entry into force of the PSMA was underway. On 5 June 2016 it will become the world’s first legally binding international accord specifically targeting IUU fishing.

Countries from the Asia-Pacific region accounted for nearly one-third of those acceding to the agreement, including major seafood producing countries such as Thailand.

Collectively, the 29 countries and the European Union, which signed as a single party, have formally committed themselves through their instruments of adherence account for more than 62 per cent of fish imports globally and 49 per cent of fish exports, which were worth $133 billion and $139 billion respectively, in 2013.

IUU fishing is responsible for annual catches of up to 26 million tonnes, with a value of up to $23 billion. It also undermines efforts to ensure sustainable fisheries and responsible fish stock management around the world.

“We are very encouraged that so many countries in the Asia-Pacific region have signed up to this agreement, particularly some of the major exporters like Thailand,” said FAO assistant director-general and regional representative, Kundhavi Kadiresan.

“As this is a legally binding agreement, it is one that countries will need to take seriously and therefore the level of commitment needed to ensure implementation will need to be significant.

“At FAO, we stand ready to help guide our member countries in this region to meet those commitments.”

Parties to the agreement from the Asia-Pacific region include Australia, Myanmar, New Zealand, Palau, Republic of Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tonga and Vanuatu.

The new treaty requires that parties designate specific ports for use by foreign vessels, making control easier. Those ships must request permission to enter ports ahead of time, and provide local authorities with details, including the fish they have on board, and allow an inspection of their log book, licences, fishing gear and actual cargo, among other things.

Importantly, the agreement calls on states to deny entry or inspect vessels that have been involved in IUU fishing, and to take necessary action. To support this, the agreement also includes the obligation for parties to share information regionally and globally, about vessels involved in IUU fishing.

Indonesia and Russia’s oil and gas giants Pertamina and Rosneft will sign a $13.8 billion deal to develop the Tuban refinery in East Java, which is crucial in the country’s drive to reduce reliance on oil imports.

“There is a strong interest from both countries to grow the partnership,” Russian President Vladimir Putin told a joint press conference after meeting with Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo in Sochi, Russia, mulling a potential free trade zone.

He also unveiled an investment interest from Russia’s Inter RAO for 1.8-gigawatt power plant projects worth $2.8 billion.

Russia’s transportation and infrastructure firm JSC Russian Railways (RZD) is also interested in developing a passenger rail track in East Kalimantan province.

Putin met with Jokowi ahead of the two-day Asean-Russia Summit that began on Thursday.

“We agreed to boost Russia’s investment in Indonesia, in the sectors of maritime, infrastructure such as railway and port in Kalimantan, oil, energy and electricity,” Jokowi said.

Russia’s investment in Indonesia at the end of last year stood merely at $1 million, out of the total $29.27 billion foreign direct investment coming into the country. The figure is also lower than the $3.6 million investment in 2014.

On Friday, Jokowi and the Indonesian delegation met with Rosneft, which controls more than 40 per cent of Russia’s oil production, marking a new beginning for both countries’ business relations, as well as for the Tuban block and Pertamina.

The official business agreement was set to be signed on Thursday in Jakarta.

Pertamina had held a beauty contest that included Saudi Arabia’s Aramco, Kuwait’s Petroleum International, China’s Sinopec, India’s Indian Oil and a consortium consisting of Thailand’s PTTGlobal Chemical and Thai Oil.

With a new refinery to be developed with Rosneft, Pertamina seeks to produce 300,000 barrels of oil per day. The firms will establish a joint venture with Pertamina holding 55 per cent and Rosneft controlling 45 per cent.

“The president wants the joint venture to be created before year-end and to establish a storage at the site. Rosneft said that it was committed to making Tuban a regional hub,” State-Owned Enterprises Minister Rini Soemarno told a group of journalists after the meeting.

Construction of the refinery is expected to begin in late 2017 or early 2018. Rosneft will be given a 40-year land development permit that can be extended for 10 years.

In addition to the refinery construction, next week’s agreement will also pave the way for Pertamina to work on Rosneft’s oil fields in Russia.

Malee Choklumlerd, director-general of the International Trade Promotion Department, said that exports of jewellery and ornaments this year should grow strongly to many markets, as Thai gems were recognised as quality products with good designs.

Last year, exports of jewellery and ornaments reached $7.18 billion.

In the first three months of this year, exports of gem and jewellery, excluding gold, were up 3.1 per cent to US$3.36 billion.

If they include gold, shipments of gem and jewellery were up 72.3 per cent to $4.72 billion in the first quarter.

As part of the government’s plan to promote gems and jewellery, the department will this year invite Fiera di Vicenza, a famous brand from Italy, to join the Bangkok Gems and Jewellery Fair this year.

Thailand and Italian brands will also cooperate on organising a gem and jewellery fair between the two countries.

Malee said that she recently met with Maurizio Di Trani, marketing and sales director to Fiera di Vicenza – an organiser of Vicenzaora, a famous gem and jewellery fair in Italy – to discuss cooperation to promote each country’s fairs.

Many Italian gem and jewellery traders will join this year’s fair, while producers of machinery for gem and jewellery enterprises will join the fair, as they want to penetrate the Thai market.

The department will hold the 58th Bangkok Gems and Jewellery Fair from September 7-11 at Im-|pact Muang Thong Thani. About 30,000 participants from around the world are expected to attend the event.