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Ministry of Commerce accelerates border opening, hoping for 4% export recovery
Accelerated border opening measures: Ministry of Commerce expects trade volume to recover and expand by up to 4%
Ministry of Commerce expects exports to recover by 4%
Looking back over the past 10 years, Thailand’s exports or border and transit trade have continued to grow due to ASEAN economic cooperation that reduces tax problems, as well as other conveniences that facilitate trade within the region, especially trade between Thailand and neighboring countries with shared borders.
However, the expansion of border and cross-border trade has slowed down in the past two years due to the trade war between the United States and China, resulting in a 3.43% decrease in exports from 2018.
In addition, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has emphasized the export problem, causing export volume to continuously decline. From the trade volume of more than 800 billion baht, it has lost more than 80 billion baht due to the closure of border checkpoints to monitor the spread of COVID-19, especially trade checkpoints between Thailand and Malaysia, Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia.
On the other hand, good news for this year, cross-border trade with China, Vietnam, Singapore and other countries grew by 8.41%, but still less than cross-border trade with Malaysia, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia.
The Ministry of Commerce, seeing the problem of slowing exports, has therefore issued measures to accelerate the opening of border checkpoints in order to allow trade volumes to recover.
Currently, 40 out of 97 border checkpoints are open, and 3 more are being expedited to open:
- Pa Saeng Checkpoint, Ubon Ratchathani Province
- Chiang Khan Checkpoint, Loei Province
- The Lost Sok Pier, Nong Khai Province
It also helps solve the container shortage problem by pushing for the urgent opening of cross-border land transport as mentioned above.
Myanmar border trade checkpoints are the most interesting checkpoints to watch because of their high growth potential from the 2,400-kilometer long border, with Mae Sai, Mae Sot, or Ranong as the main permanent export checkpoints. But a concern for Myanmar border checkpoints is the coup d’état, which may require monitoring of the possibility of sanctions policies that may occur with Myanmar, which will affect trade between Thailand’s neighboring countries.
However, from the measures to accelerate the opening of the border, it is expected that the trade volume will recover and expand by up to 4%.
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