The screen-printing industry plans to spend Bt600 million from the government's "Creative Economy" budget on enhancing its technology and expanding the market in a bid to achieve regional-hub status in the next five years.
Pirach Thampipit, president of Thai Screen Printing and Graphic Imaging Association, said the sector was a genuinely creative industry which adds high value to another 18 industries, including textiles, ceramics, gifts, toys, advertising billboards, automotive and electronics.
"Say you buy a Bt100 T-shirt and pay Bt10 for screen printing, then you sell it for Bt250. This is an easy demonstration that although the direct value of screen printing is about Bt10 billion, it can create indirect value to the country of more than Bt100 billion each year," he said.
Under the plan, he said the industry would spend the approved budget on developing know-how and technology among local manufacturers, whose current technology follows that used in Japan and South Korea.
One of the big difficulties in promoting local screen printing is that Thailand has none of its own global-brand products, he added.
"Japan has Toyota and Korea has Samsung, companies which encourage their small and medium-sized enterprises to conduct research and improve their competency. But we have none. That's why we asked for the budget to do our own research and position ourselves as the best original-equipment manufacturers in the screen-printing industry instead," he added.
Pirach said the association would cooperate with seven industries in developing printing to match demand. The selected industries are toys, gifts, advertisements, ceramics, textiles, handmade products and stationery.
The implementation of the Asean Free Trade Agreement next year will be an opportunity for Thai manufacturers to expand their business in other countries with cheaper costs and to enlarge their customer base in the region.
He said Thailand had been listed in the top four for screen printing in Southeast Asia, the other three countries being Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines.
"We've just created the world's first-ever standard for screen printing. This will be an important step to push forward development in our industry, as it will make our people more enthusiastic about improving their production quality," he said.
He added that the association was cooperating with the Thai Industrial Standards Institute to set up a TISI standard for the screen-printing industry.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
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