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Thailand:Exporters optimistic on job front -
no job losses predicted |
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2004-12-30
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The ending of the Multifibre Agreement established more than 30 years ago is not going to affect the garment and textile industry workers in face of fierce competition from world textile and apparel market, leading exporters from here say.
Credit goes to actions taken in the recent past on capacity expansion and improving the overall efficiency that instill confidence among local apparel and fabric exporters to believe that Thailand will be able to compete with major garment-exporting countries like China, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Turkey on the ending of the textile quotas after the Multi-Fibre Arrangement (MFA) is lifted.
According to Suchart Chantaranakaracha, chairman of the executive board of the Thai Garment Development Foundation, there will be no “pink slips” for workers belonging to this industry.
Suchart, who is also the adviser to the Industry Minister, stated that apparel and fabric exporters had invested around 50 billion baht in hardware and software to enhance production capacity. He predicted relatively high growth for apparel exports, at 15% next year.
Apparel and textile shipments from Thailand for the first 10 months of this year were 17.3 percent year-on-year to US$ 5.2 billion, against 6.3 percent growth in 2003. But , he warned manufacturers of deficiencies driving them out of business next year, however, workers from those units could always move to large-scale, efficient factories.
Suchart had forecast earlier that 20% of the country''s 2,700 textile and garment factories could be forced out of business in the face of intensifying competition. Now labour shortages are feared as more countries seek Thai apparels and garments with the up coming Free Trade Agreements having already drawn or coming up in the near future with neighbouring countries. |
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