According to Thai media news, on April 29, Thailand's Deputy Minister of Commerce Na Pingtong presided over the launching ceremony of the "Thai Milk Forward, FTA Helps Expand Export Market" project launched by the International Trade Negotiation Office, and revealed after the ceremony that the Ministry of Commerce is committed to enhancing the capacity and potential of small and medium-sized enterprises to be ready to deal with competition, and the goal is to achieve 40% of GDP in the output value of small and medium-sized enterprises by 2027, because small and medium-sized enterprises are an important mechanism to promote the Thai economy.
He said that milk products are a product that the Ministry of Commerce attaches great importance to because it is one of the important products for Thailand to cope with free trade competition. One of the goals of the implementation of the above projects is to use the China-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement to promote the export of dairy products to the Chinese market, reduce costs and improve competitiveness of enterprises. This year, the project's activities will adapt to the digital business era, and will launch online and offline marketing and live streaming, which will be sold to China through the e-commerce platform Taobao.
At present, there are many enterprises interested in the project, and the International Trade Negotiation Office has selected 20 enterprises to participate in the training, strengthen the training on the use of free trade agreements in international trade, standard trade regulations for export products, online and offline marketing methods in the Chinese market, and finally select 10 enterprises to go to Shanghai, China in May this year to explore the market and conduct business docking.
In addition, he further said that Thailand is the largest exporter of milk and dairy products in ASEAN and the seventh largest in the world, exporting milk and dairy products to the global market in 2023 amounting to US$648.6 million, an increase of 9.3% year-on-year, with the main export markets including ASEAN, China (Mainland), Hong Kong, China, Japan and Ghana.