Thai bargain bin bashed by Cheap Chinese imports

Thailand is legendary in the region for its tourism and shopping. However, like many other countries, Thailand is being overrun by cheap Chinese products.

Most tourists and clothing traders know downtown Pratunam area well. Located close to Baiyoke 2 high-rise building, Pratunam is one of the two biggest clothing wholesale centres (alongside Bo Bae) in Bangkok.

Pratunam covers an area of 22,000 sq meter, located on the crossroads of Ratchaprarop and Phetchaburi roads.

All the five floors of the Baiyoke 2 building have been reserved for wholesale of all kinds of made-in-Thailand products, from clothing to footwear, handbags to cosmetics. Customers are both domestic and international tourists, dealers and traders.

Since 2003, Pratunam has become one of the most crowded wholesale centers in Thailand. Most tourists domestic and international, when visiting Bangkok, will often drop into the centre to pick up clothes to sale abroad.

However, Pratunam will no longer be a wholesale paradise for most international dealers and traders, as the centre is to change its business operations at the end of this year. Pratunam is set to become a retail centre for China-made clothes.

Since the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) was signed between Thailand and China, Chinese products, especially cheap clothing and footwear have been flooding into the Thai market, and such cheap imported products have led to decreased sales volume for Thai producers and businessmen.

According to Marketing Director of Great China Millennium, the company that manages Pratunam, Worapong Buparsiri, in the past, clients who hired space to open sale booths, were Thai medium and large scale producers. However, their wholesale activities cannot compete any longer with the rising tide of very cheap Chinese imports. Traders at Pratunam must change the business methods, with most becoming sales agents for Chinese products.

Meanwhile, the company's chairman Watcharakiti Watcharothai said that Pratunam will have to change its image to meet the requirements of the stall-holders. The centre may become the second Mah Boonkrong, the biggest retail center for clothing and mobile phones in Bangkok.

To date 50 percent of traders at Pratunam have changed their business from wholesale to retail activities, and restructuring of the centre's booths is also being implemented.

The first floor of Baiyoke 2 will be reserved for fine arts and jewelery products, the second floor will be for consumer products and the products imported from China, while the third floor will be for Thai and foreign restaurants.

The fourth and fifth floors remain unoccupied. However, the company is negotiating with Pornpalin, which is managing Centre Point, a retail centre on Siam square, over bringing in stores full of fashionable footwear, cosmetics and clothes, serving Thai youths.