The Mekong sub-region has the potential to generate high returns on investments in agriculture and related industries.
Agricultural businesses can prosper when they feed the growing middle class in Asia, particularly in China. These optimistic voices were heard at an economic forum in Bangkok on Thursday. Businesses will also benefit from the liberalization of trade, capital and the free movement of professionals when the Asian Economic Community comes into force in 2015.
However, the main obstacles are climate change and a lack of financial facilities. The biggest challenge is finding capital to finance business expansions and for Thailand and Vietnam will have a hard time finding large plots of farmland. The technology gap is also a problem for agribusinesses. Thailand and Vietnam, said Marvin Yeo, director of Frontier Investments and Development Partners, should play a key role in closing that gap.
While investors are particularly interested in palm oil because of its high profits, Yeo believes that the focus should be on rubber, tapioca and cassava to meet demand in Asia.
(Source: Bangkok Post, June 22, 2012)
The Asian Economic Community as mentioned above is in fact the ASEAN Economic Community or AEC – ASEAN stands for 'Association of South-East Asian Nations'. This is an organization of 10 countries, with a headquarters (Secretariat-General) in Jakarta. The participating countries are Brunei, Cambodia, Philippines, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. The AEC is indeed planned for 2015, but – if it is actually realized at all – it will go considerably less far than the European Economic Community, nowadays the European Union. Free movement of goods, for example – there will be no question of this for a long time since no so-called customs union will be created yet because the participating countries have to completely equalize their import tariffs for this – and there is absolutely no support for this in most countries. This is partly due to the large differences in the economic reality in the participating countries.
@Cornelis: a bit off topic, but where on the internet can you find exactly what will change in 2015? I am particularly interested in whether the free movement of people will actually continue, but I can't really get that confirmed by googling.
I give you the link to this topic on the ASEAN website: http://www.asean.org/18757.htm. From there you can click through to the (dating from 2007) 'blueprint' for the AEC.
In 2009 and 2010 I worked within ASEAN as a consultant for an EU-sponsored program aimed at supporting regional integration in ASEAN. There I gained the experience that the organization is very good at 'drawing' ambitious visions, but that the realization of plans is a lot more difficult. The political and especially economic differences between the participating countries are very large and therefore the interests are also quite diverse.
For example, it currently appears that the 'free movement of persons' is only aimed at the cross-border mobility of 'ASEAN professionals and skilled labour' involved in cross-border trade and investment activities. This refers to visa facilities, etc., so a long way from the free movement of persons as we know it within the EU.
This is really another post in the “Space Chatter” category and hardly worth posting on this blog.
“Great opportunities, high yields, thriving opportunities for agriculture in the Mekong sub-region” Sure enough, if that AEC is realised, it will all come together, also in the poor parts of Thailand, including the Isan. You believe that? Well, not me!
A little later it says that financing and technology are still throwing up some obstacles! Well, that's a bit of a problem!
Well, those "great opportunities, etc." have been there for a long time, and there is also enough money to invest fruitfully in those agricultural provinces, but it just doesn't happen. The Thai mentality of "Bangkok" will compared to oa. the Isaan by the AEC does not change.
@Gringo Don't shoot the messenger. Whether something is 'gel*l', as you write, is up to the reader's discretion.
@Dick, I am the reader and I rate the saying on that forum and that Marvin Yeo as chatter.
The “messenger”, meaning you in this case, could have come to the same conclusion and therefore could have decided not to publish it any further. The newspaper has to be full, but this blog is a bit different.
@ Gringo, I wonder what the moderator has been doing, sleeping......
People are not placed in front of periods and spaces, and yes, for me, gel*l is foul language......? Read the house rules.
Moderator: Olga you are right. I changed it.
@Olga, "bullshit" is a common Dutch word, not an obscene language. It appears in the Dutch Language Glossary of the Taalunie and in the Open Language spelling dictionary.
I shall nevertheless use the word chatter, nonsense, or drivel next time.
The fact that it appears in the Dutch Language Glossary of the Taalunie and in the Open Language spelling dictionary does not mean that it is necessary to be used.
There are plenty of alternative words - as you yourself indicate examples - to express an opinion and or to emphasize that opinion.
Moreover, this blog distinguishes itself from other blogs/forums where such expletives are often commonplace, I may not be a moderator here, but let it remain that way.
Or was the intention to confirm the prejudice about Thailand goers - especially Pattaya goers - that they are rather clumsy and rude in their appearance, both physically and verbally. 😉
@Gringo,
Of course this is largely a men's blog, but gel * l is foul language for me.
And I appreciate you using a different word next time to indicate something you don't like. Thank you.
Olga and Charles: enough about that one word, I've already put on the penitent.
But now give your opinion on my position, that the article in question is gossip from and doesn't really belong on the blog!
@Gringo,
My opinion about this article is that it simply belongs on this blog. It is an article from the Bangkok post, and everyone is very happy that Dick van der Lugt is back, to unravel and translate the Thai news for many blog readers!
Just as well as the pieces you put on this blog, such as about the history of Thailand, etc., I am happy with that. Fortunately I read everything, I will not give my opinion on everything, provided it touches me in some way. and I can and may give my opinion on that!
And I personally think that the AEC will not work, but the politics in Thailand will remain as it is for the time being, and we can talk about that for a long time, but unfortunately we cannot solve it.
And personally I didn't like your reaction to Dick's piece!
@Olga, thanks for your honest response.
In my first response to Dick's article, I said why I thought it was a rubbish article. That was not a reproach to Dick, because he did not write the article, only translated it.
Dick makes a selection of news from the Bangkok Post and I felt that this article in question did not deserve a separate mention on the blog. That's all!
For the rest, I have a lot of respect and admiration for fellow blog writer Dick, who makes that news overview every day.
I have no opinion at all about your point of view because I don't understand it. The article and by extension also your opinion do not interest me at all, so that I feel that I cannot and do not want to give an expert opinion about it, even more so that I am not allowed to give it.
Moreover, I don't pretend to want to have or give an opinion about everything, but that aside.
I do disagree with you that the article in question does not actually belong in this blog, it is also about Thailand because I think it has a relationship with that country given the simple reason regarding the name of the blog can be sufficiently concluded.
@ Gringo If I follow your train of thought, I would have to leave all statements of politicians unmentioned.
I select stories from the Bangkok Post not based on whether or not I agree with them, but on their relevance to the reader. From the fact that the article has already been read 171 times, I conclude that there is sufficient interest in the subject.
My father-in-law has a piece of 30 Rai for sale near Khong Chiam. Who is interested or knows someone who has it?
Perhaps a (little) öff topic”.
My girlfriend lives in the Isaan. She bought a piece of land there a few years ago. First she grew cassava and now cane sugar.
The cassava was not such a success because, as I understood, the rats had eaten or chewed part of it.
Now she grows cane sugar.
This year she had her first harvest. When I asked how are you going to do that, she said she had a trader who bought more cane sugar in the village and who also came to get it.
Two uncertain factors : a reasonable price and also for the right weight ?
My question: are there any organizations in Thailand that provide information or support small farmers in growing and selling agricultural products.
By way of explanation: my girlfriend has no experience with the cultivation of cassava and cane sugar and she now does it with the knowledge and experience of fellow villagers.
Unfortunately, there are not many organizations that do something like this. If there is one, I'm curious too.
I think rubber plantations are still going well. Do read that it takes 5 years for a tree to get that far… But maybe piece by piece, those trees remain standing, it seems to me to be a luxury harvest compared to other crops.
If you take good care, yes, 5 to 8 years, since rubber is now the only thing in the agricultural sector that you can make money with, although from 20 rai you can earn something decent with it, but that will be a problem now that everyone is planting rubber all over the country. In Southeast Asia and South Asia there will be famous overproduction within a few years, which means that the price of rubber could famously collapse, as is often the case here in agriculture.