The one-year-old factory is part of his Thai Silk's 96-hectare Jim Thompson farm in Nakhon Ratchasima province, and is one of the innovations designed to maintain the Jim Thompson legend as a dynamic local business.

In the factory, Thai Printers & Finishers Co. Ltd. a few workers are inking wooden blocks with different colours and using the blocks to print patterns on white fabric. Not many workers are willing to apply the technique because of the patience involved. An average design requires 63 block prints per metre, and most of the wooden blocks are more than 80 years old.

Edward Turnbull and Co Ltd, a Manchester, England-based printing company, has relocated its hand-block printing facilities to Thailand as part of a joint-venture with Thai Silk Co Ltd. Booth said only four factories of its kind are left in the world, despite continuing demand for hand-printed crafts.

On a personal level, Booth, 36, has found that the hand-block printing project connected him with Jim Thompson, who Booth refers to as nai hang (the boss). Although he was born after Thompson's disappearance in 1967, Booth has adopted the same name for Thompson as those who used to work under him, when he was around.

"I want to maintain the craft of hand-block printing, while Thompson's desire to revive the silk craft inspired nai hang to set up the silk and textile business in Thailand," he said.

As the international marketing director of Thai Silk Co, Booth is part of the third-generation management of the company set up by Jim Thompson in 1951. His father, William Booth, who started working with Thompson in 1963, is now managing director of the company that last year recorded domestic retail sales of Bt1.7 billion and another Bt453 million from exports.

The phenomenal sales of Jim Thompson's products have been largely attributed to the coming of Japanese businessmen and tourists in the 1980s. Eighty per cent of sales go to tourists, mostly of them from Japan.

Thompson began his business of selling hand-woven silk to foreign tourists by working with silk-weaving communities in Bangkok. But he mysteriously disappeared on March 26, 1967, on a vacation in Malaysia's Cameron Highlands.

Thai Silk Co's management maintained his vision and Jim Thompson has become a prestige Thai brand name.

In 1982, the management set up new production facilities in Nakhon Ratchasima's Pak Thong Chai district, and most of the company's products come from there. The farm compound includes a sericulture and mulberry cultivation farm which produces about 30,000 silk cases annually, a silk reeling factory with semi-automatic reeling machines capable of producing 60,000kg of silk thread per year, and bleaching, dyeing and weaving facilities.

Booth, who is half-Thai, half-American, graduated in history from Georgetown University, but his familiarity with the silk industry began when he used to run around the farm as a child. After a stint in the finance business, Booth joined the Thai Silk Co 10 years ago to help the company expand its base overseas.

The joint venture with Turnbull marks the most recent step in its overseas expansion. Thai Silk Co invested Bt200 million to hold a 51-per-cent stake in the joint venture company, Thai Printers and Finishers Co Ltd.

"We can capture a niche market for this hand-block printing because it has been ignored by the Chinese, who have focused on the mass market," he said.

Booth is also excited about his company's next overseas project, opening its first showroom outside Asia, in Munich, Germany, on New Year's Day. The showroom will become the company's base for expansion into the EU, which already buys about Bt140 million-worth, or one-third, of Jim Thompson's exports.

Booth said he felt confident that the European operation would succeed because the company has found the right business partner.

In spite of its domestic reputation, The Thai Silk Co and its Jim Thompson brand often have to struggle to connect with customers overseas.

Last year, the company had to close down a shop in Dubai after only one-year of operations.

Booth attributed the flop to the wrong representation, expensive operational costs, and the fact that local clients were not receptive to traditional Jim Thompson designs.

"Dubai is a lesson for our future expansion," said Booth, who spends about six months per year on business travel.

Overseas retail sales last year also declined substantially after the company had to close two airport shops in Singapore after losing out on bidding to continue. However, it has opened a restaurant in Kuala Lumpur called "MyThai", which has been a significant success.

This year, the company opened a Bt125-million store at Siam Paragon shopping complex in Bangkok and plans an outlet at the future Suvarnabhumi Airport.

Although sales from airport outlets usually grow at a phenomenal rate, this doesn't translate into increased net profits because the gross sales must be shared with an airport franchise, which severely cuts the company's profit margin.

Booth expects that sales this year will grow 10 per cent over last year.

"We have to go international to survive. The domestic market is saturated. More silk shops will only be stealing clients from each other."

Booth said the company's expansion had outgrown the vision of Jim Thompson, who would have been 100 years old this year.

Asked what he would say to Jim Thompson, if he met him now, Booth said: "I would ask him what he thinks of what we have done so far, whether he thinks we've done the right thing."

He said Thompson would approve, with one possible exception: "Jim Thompson wouldn't think of creating his own production facilities, because he wanted to work with the local weavers. But it is difficult to maintain an operation like that these days. You would have no time to visit each community, like in the old days."

Jeerawat Na Thalang

 The Nation