On this occasion, the Prime Minister awarded the Prime Minister’s Export Award 2010 and congratulated the recipients. Export is important for Thailand’s economy and in the present time, the value of import and export when summed up, is much higher than gross domestic product, said the Prime Minister. The growth of the Thai economy has a very close relationship with exports. Thus, the success of export is important for the success, development and growth of Thai economy. To be successful there must be cooperation from many parties. The Ministry of Commerce is the main organization to support business until successful in export. Private sectors also play a big role. If the private sectors improve goods and service production in every process, it will boost competitiveness and bring about constant export expansion and economic growth. When these are successful, living standards,  including opportunities and income of our people as a whole will be elevated, said the Prime Minister.

He also added that in the past 2-3 years Thai exports were affected by the crisis of the world’s economy. But now there is an expansion of exports as a response to the government’s policy to emphasize the significance of export by helping exporters find new opportunities, support exporters to expand the market, and determine marketing strategies to increase market share. The government also supports traders to add more value to goods and services and optimize our FTA agreement which is growing continuously both in bilateral and multilateral levels. With higher competition in the world’s economy, being successful globally demands improvement of the quality of goods and service, more ability to goods distribution to become wider and faster, and to use our geographic advantage and capacity of our export. The government supports and invests in logistics systems, which will help support the factors that are advantageous. Moreover, the private sector also develops managing systems and better goods distribution, which strengthen and support our capacity and competitiveness in exporting, said the Prime Minister.

The government has emphasized on creativity by launching the “Creative Economy”. We need to brainstorm on our local wisdom, art, and society cultures along with emphasis on fundamental factors about community and environment, which will lead to concrete creative economic development in different ways and demonstrate our societal and environmental responsibilities. This is what the world accepts and admires. And thus, adding creativity in goods and service also plays a role to elevate and differentiate ourselves and impress our customers, the Prime Minister said.  The Prime Minister added in the end that awarding excellent exporters will inspire them to improve towards success. There are many challenges waiting in the future. The Asean Economic Community, which will be realised in five years time, is going to be both an opportunity and challenge for Thailand’s exports, with more than 600 million people. Here in Asean Community will be a good opportunity to access  various export markets, and to emphasise on environment and the community which will be impacted by the liberalisation of trade and investment.