Monday, January 01 2007 @ 09:49 AM ICT

Contributed by: news

The Office of Industrial Economics and the National Institute for Textile Industry Development set up an in-depth data centre to analyse the impact of the ASEAN-China Free Trade Agreement on Thailand.

With the ASEAN-China FTA has come into force from 20 July, the data centre will serve to collect information to enable analysis, planning how the Thai textile and garment industries can stay competitive, according to Mrs Chutaporn Lampasara, Director of the OIE.

The data collected will cover all branches of the textile and garment industry in Thailand and tracing the entire industry from upstream to downstream. The ASEAN-China FTA forces the Thai operators to strengthen itself as China is considered both a formidable rival and a potential market at the same time, she said.

The textile and garment sector in Thailand employs over 1 million workers in 4,600 factories, and the export value for the sector averages 200 billion baht per year. It remains weak when it comes to research and industry for innovation.