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Lackluster Thai border market to be turned into distributing center for secondhand, copyrighted goods

Xinhua, June 9, 2016 Adjust font size:

A sluggish market on the eastern Thai border is set to become a center for secondhand, copyrighted merchandise which will be distributed by land to Cambodia and Vietnam, said a Thai businessman on Thursday.

Though daily trading at Roang Klua (salt mill) market in the Thai border district of Aranyaprathet, opposite to Cambodia's Poi Pet township, is currently lackluster following crackdowns on pirated, secondhand goods earlier this year.

The local Thai business sector has planned to turn it into a hectic center for secondhand, copyrighted goods primarily bound for cross-border distributions to Cambodia and Vietnam, said Pramual Keokam, secretary general of Sra Kaeo province's Chamber of Commerce.

Many Cambodian vendors who had earlier rented shophouses and stalls at Rong Klua market, about 240 km east of Bangkok, have given up on their trading business and returned home inside the neighboring country since the crackdowns by the Thai authorities suddenly turned its atmosphere from hectic to sluggish.

Large volumes of the pirated, smuggled items at Rong Klua market such as handbags, shoes, clothing and automotive accessories were earlier traded for as much as 50,000 U.S. dollars in value per day.

''The Thai authorities and local business sector have remained so optimistic that the days of busy, lucrative Rong Klua market would return sooner or later, without any more smuggled, pirated goods. All the contraband items will certainly be replaced with copyrighted ones, not only for sales to the Thais but to those in the neighboring countries,'' Pramual said.

Given the planned Rong Klua distributing center, assortments of Thailand's OTOP goods and secondhand, copyrighted products as well as other legally-traded items will be delivered by land across the Aranyaprathet - Poi Pet border to markets inside Cambodia and those inside Vietnam, he said.

The acronym OTOP, which stands for One Tambon (community) One Product, was part of a promotional campaign for the production and marketing of indigenous handicraft and food items launched by a previous Thai government over a decade ago. Endit