Bounty of the Land and Sea

            Rice forms the core of the Thai economic system. The staple food of the nation, it was the country’s largest single foreign exchange earner for well over a century. Thailand is the world’s leading exporter of rice, earning 34,676 million baht in 1988. In recent years though, agriculturalists have found new uses for paddy land. At the same time, modern technology has opened up new or formerly arid land to crop cultivation. The northeast and southeast, previously considered two of the least fertile areas, are now producing tapioca in large quantities and in 1988, it ranked fouth after rice, earning 21,685 million baht.

                Cassava cultivation on a major scale was not resumed until 1958, when it was taken up by farmers in the northeast. Foreign demand for tapioca then increased so dramatically that Thailand is now the world’s largest exporter. Local factories process it into flour, which is used industrially, and into the chips and pellets sold as animal feed.

                Compared with rice, sugar and tapioca, maize is a newcomer on the Thai farming scene, having been grown in large amounts only since World War II. It has, however, climbed steadily since then. In the 1988/89 season, Thai farmers planted 1.95 million hectares of land with local and hybird strains whose yield was expected to top 5.2 million tons, much of which would go to European and Japanese animal feed markets.

                Thailand is the world’s third largest producer of natural rubber after Malaysia and Indonesia. Production in 1988 was 960,000 tons-about 930,003 tons of which were exported-compared to production of 617,710 tons in 1984. This substantially higher output was due largely to higher world demand and the effects of the AIDS epidemic on the demand for rubber products. Rubber plantations occupied 1,763,500 hectares in 1988-89, mainly in the south.

                Canned rambutan and longan have found ready markets overseas but by far the most important of the country’s fruit exports is canned pineapple, of which Thailand is the world’s largest exporter.

                Flowers are also an important export item. Thailand is one of the world’s biggest suppliers of orchids. About 2,000 commercial growers, mostly in the Bangkok area, produced enough enough blooms in 1988 to earn over 500 million baht in foreign exchange from natural orchids alone. Major markets are Japan and European countries.

                In the past, beef production was a profitable farming sideline but in recent years growing demand brought about by the increase in population and urbanization and by a rising standard of living has led to specialization in livestock breeding and commercial stockfarming using scientific methods. High-quality cattle and pigs have been imported to improve local breeds through cross-breeding. It has also been shown that cattle thrive on coconut plantations if the space between the trees is planted with suitable grass.

                Thailand has export markets for beef in Singapore and Hong Kong and is trying to gain entrance into the potentially large Japanese market. Increased scientific beef cattle production will also be a boon to the fast-growing leather and tanning industry.

                Thailand’s wide variety of hard and softwood forests has created a burgeoning wood industry. Tropical evergreens, hill evergreens, mangroves, deciduous depterocarps and mixed deciduous are processed to produce firewood, stick lac, gum benzoin, rattan used in the manufacture of cane furniture, bamboo used booth for furniture and paper, dyes, tanning bark and a huge variety of medicinal herbs, leaves and roots.

                Thailand’s waters are every bit as bountiful as its fields and forests. In 1986, marine fishing in Thailand ranked ninth in the world and third in Southeast Asia. In 1988, The highest marine product export was canned fish. Thailand is the world’s second biggest exporter of frozen shrimp; squit and cuttlefish are also popular export items. According to the Fisheries Department, a fleet of more than 16,000 powered vessels plying the waters off the country’s roughly 3,000-km. Coastline approximately 2.6 million tons of marine products a year, makes the industry the seventh largest in Asia.

                Freshwater fish abound. Besides the many varieties which breed naturally in rivers, lakes and streams, there are those raised by rice farmers in their flooded paddy fields and harvested together with the rice. In addition, the Inland Fisheries Department is vigorously promoting freshwater aquaculture by farmers with large ponds. Freshwater prawns are also plentiful.

                Mineral reserves in Thailand are rich and varied. Mining production in 1988 totalled 44,333 million baht in value added with exports earning 7,631 million baht, accounting for about 1.9 percent of the country’s total exports. Tin, for centuries the biggest moneymaker among Thai minerals, remains so today, with the country ranking fourth behind Brazil, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Tin export in 1988 was 13,392 metric tons, earning 2,339 million baht of foreign exchange.

                Gemstones, among them the legendary Siamese rubies and sapphires, have also long been mined in Thailand. Thailand’s colored gems market is the world’s largest, Export of precious stones earned 13,772 million baht in 1988, ranking sixth among Thailand’s leading exports. In addition, many different minerals, ores and metals are being exported. The major minerals, interms of tonnage, are fluorite, barite, gypsum, manganese and tin. Wolfram and antimony are also important exports.

                Minerals mined but not exported include limestone, marl, lignite, potash, kaolinite, ball clay feldspar, quartz and tantalum, all of which are used by local manufacturers.

                In recent years, the limelight has shiffed to other modern buried treasures : natural gas and oil in the Gulf of Thailand. In 1988 Thailand import about US$800 million worth of petroleum product. The country’s dependence on imported oil rose from 50 percent of the total energy consumption in 1962 to 75 percent in 1981. By producing and utilizing indigenous sources of energy for substitution. Such as natural gas, lignite, hydro-power and non conventional energy sources, Thailand has reduced her dependence on imported oil. Thus, dependence on foreign energy sources was down to 54 percent in 1988

                Natural gas and oil have been discovered in the north, northeast, and in the Gulf of Thailand. The new Eastern Seaboard industrial center comprises a gas separation plant, a petrochemical complex and other manufacturing facilities. Located in three eastern provinces-chon Buri, Rayong and Chachoengsao-it covers 8.3 million heatares of land. After the successful laying of a 425 -km. Nutural gas submarine transmission pipeline, from the Erawan gas field in the Gulf of Thailand to the onshore terminal and then to the Bang pakong and south Bangkok power plants, the gas came on stream in 1981.

                As a government-owned enterprise, the Petroleum Authority of Thailand (PTT) is engaged in the business of oil supply, oil refinery, gas pipeline operation, gas-processing plant operation and petroleum industry. With the cooperation of other government agencies, PTT has been responsible for the development and exploitation of fossil fuel resources in the country.