The Internal Trade Department of the Commerce Ministry plans to investigate fruit-sorting facilities for Chinese companies that buy Thai fruit for export to China and then resell some of the lower-quality fruit illegally back on the Thai market.
"If Chinese companies that obtain a licence to do sorting of Thai fruit for export to China, or have facilities for Thai fruit inside Thailand for export, but they buy Thai fruit and resell it on the Thai market, this is illegal and violates the Foreign Business Act BE 2542. The problem now is that when Chinese companies that buy Thai fruit have some that is lower than the GMP standard after the sorting process, they do not want to waste it, so they decide to resell it on the Thai market," said the department's director-general, Wiboonlasana Ruamraksa.
According to the act, they could face a fine of between Bt100,000 and Bt1 million, and/or a prison sentence of three years.
She added that Thailand's Agriculture and Cooperatives Ministry and China's Agriculture Ministry had an agreement whereby Chinese companies can operate sorting facilities to buy and package Thai fruit for export to China under the Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) standard. The fruit that does not meet GMP standards cannot be exported but also cannot be resold on the domestic Thai fruit market.
