Fons Arents, Fresh Partners:
"EU food safety rules more problematic than unrest for supply of Thai product"
A few years ago the airport was shut for around ten days during unrest. "This had such a huge impact that I don't expect it to happen again," says Fons Arents. "The Thai population is very reliant on income from trade and tourism, so they won't touch it." Last week roads to the airport were blocked due to demonstrations, but it could still be accessed through other roads. If there were to be an expected problem with the airport anyway, the Thai exporters would have a solution immediately due to their experience.
Sampling
The EU has set high demand for some product, specifically from Thailand, and the NVWA in Holland has recently raised the costs for sampling Thai products considerably. "It is now more than 500 Euro per article. This is the same if you are only importing 10 kilos of a certain product as a one off. I don't understand that this is accepted by the various trade organisations in the Netherlands."
The Thai government (DoA) is placing stricter requirements on farmers/exporters to export, under pressure from the EU, as it brings considerable costs in the exploitation and logistics process. It has already meant that various smaller exporters have had to end their activities.
Positive developments
A positive development in Thailand is that the attention paid to the residue policy by farmers has improved considerably. There is increased daily attention from all parties, which means that Thailand will win back its number 1 position in the export of fruit and vegetables out of the surrounding countries in the long term. Eventually, the difficult political situation will turn and the country will be able to move forward in its economic development, which will benefit the export sector in fruit and vegetables.
For more information:
Fons Arents
Freshpartners
MB Holl +31 6 53640902
MB Thai +668 70487178
fonsarents@freshpartners.com
www.freshpartners.com