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19 Aug 2005

Agriculture

Sweet Corn: Thai Exports No.3 in the World Market

คะแนนเฉลี่ย

Sweet corn is a vegetable worth watching. Over the past five years, exports of Thai sweet corn have been growing steadily, thanks to competitiveness in both price and quality. Presently, Thailand is the world's third largest exporter of sweet corn, behind Hungary and the US.

Presently, Thailand's sweet corn cultivation covers an area of 737,500 rai, with total production (including husk) of some 1.48 million tons. In 2002, the cultivation area for sweet corn totaled some 200,000 rai, while production (including husk) topped around 400,000 tons. Expansion in sweet corn cultivation and output can be attributed to numerous favorable factors. Among them are steady growth in exports of sweet corn that have induced canned vegetable and fruit producers to add sweet corn to their product lines, plus a rising number of producers of fresh, chilled and frozen sweet corn. These producers have encouraged farmers to grow sweet corn under contract farming agreements. Such investments have been seen rising in the North where the output of sweet corn has more than doubled each year over the past four years.

Sweet corn sold in the market can be classified into two types: processed sweet corn and fresh/chilled/frozen sweet corn. Exports of processed sweet corn come in the forms of whole kernels in saline solutions or cream-style sauces. Processed Thai sweet corn has gained increasing popularity, and thus exports of Thai processed sweet corn have been growing steadily. It is forecast that, in 2005, the export value will be approach THB3.5 billion, which would be an increase by 29.2 percent over 2004. An important export market is the EU, where Thai exports represent 50.0 percent of its total export. Other markets after the EU, but growing well are South Korea, Russia, Japan, the US and the Philippines. It is expected that in the future these markets will be more significant in substituting for exports to the EU, which has begun to have problems. For fresh, chilled and frozen sweet corn, Thai exports of this category are growing steadily. It is forecast that the export value of fresh, chilled and frozen sweet corn in 2005 will be THB170.0 million, increasing 50.6 percent over the export value in 2004. Fresh, chilled and frozen sweet corn is quite popular overseas. An important export market is Japan, taking 60.0 percent of the total export value. Other interesting markets are Taiwan and the US. For new markets where exports have just begun to look attractive are Costa Rica, Sweden, Vietnam, Reunion Island, Singapore and Iran.

Factors that remain points of caution and need expedited problem-solving to maintain steady growth in exports of Thai sweet corn would include maintaining manufacturing standards and the problem of price cutting among exporters, which may lead to important importing countries to suspect market dumping. These two problems will definitely affect the broad picture for Thai sweet corn export in the future.

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