Thailand’s Industrial Promotion Center Region 11 has launched a program to promote cluster development in the para-rubber industry, with the advent of the ASEAN Economic Community in 2015.
Deputy Governor of Songkhla Peerasin Panpeng presided over the opening ceremony of the “Rubber Cluster Development” program in the province aimed at preparing those involved in the industry in southern border provinces for the AEC. Participants in the meeting were entrepreneurs of rubber products, and rubber cooperatives.
Mr. Peerasin revealed that rubber plantations in southern Thailand cover 3.3 million rai of land in Songkhla, Satun, Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat, facilitating various upstream and downstream industries including rubber latex, rubber sheets, and processed-rubber wood. However, without cluster development in the sector, rubber entrepreneurs have to bear such problems as an increase in production cost and obsolete technologies.
As a result, the Industrial Promotion Center Region 11 is keen to enhance the ability of those farmers and help them apply new innovation and better technology to rubber products in order for the farmers to compete in the AEC market and gain more from exporting by adding value to the products.
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