Kessiri Siripakorn, minister at the Commercial Affairs Office for the Royal Thai Embassy in Washington, made a strong case for the US to continue extending GSP to Thailand as it is still a developing country.

She said the US should not withdraw the trade benefit as long as Thailand's gross domestic product per capita remains less than US$10,000 (Bt373,000). At present, the Kingdom's GDP per capita is $8,600, she said.

The US last month announced that it was reviewing GSP benefits to 13 countries amid growing pressure from Congress to amend the programme, which critics claims distributes benefits unfairly to a small group of countries.

The deadline for countries to submit comments to the US on how the cut would affect their industries ended yesterday.

A US official, who did not want to be named, said there were three options. The first is to keep the programme unchanged, the second is to terminate it and the third is to cut some benefits and modify it.

He believed the third option was the most likely to be taken up. "If the GSP with Thailand is terminated, the US trade deficit with China will increase," he said.

The US is expected to finalise its decision late this year.

Kessiri, however, spoke of the possibility of some strong export sectors being cut off from the privilege programme.

Jewellery, television and the automotive spare-parts industries are vulnerable. The high export volume in the US market this year may be creating the problem.

According to the Commerce Ministry, most jewellery exporters have utilised the GSP. In the first five months, 96.7 per cent of jewellery exports to the US, valued at $590 million, enjoyed GSP benefits. Television exports amounted to $170 million and auto parts $82.9 million.