The garment industry is planning to join forces with private sector lobbying groups to push the government into holding talks with the member countries of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) about including Thailand in multilateral free-trade negotiations.
"We have to get involved in the TPP to maintain our competitiveness," Sukij Kongpiyacharn, president of the Thai Garment Manufacturers Association (TGMA), said last week.
The TGMA will ask business groups, including the Federation of Thai Industries and the Board of Trade, to hold a joint meeting with the private sector. They should learn more about the impacts of the trade bloc on non-member countries, she said.
The TPP is an important initiative of the Obama administration intended to dramatically increase American exports to the Asia-Pacific and create good jobs at home.
The TPP agreement has not yet focused much on industrial goods, she said.
The meeting would be held soon not only to brainstorm ideas but also to pressure the government to approach TPP members for entry.
The multilateral agreement covers eight partner countries - Australia, Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam. The TPP negotiations are expected to extend into next year.
The proposed framework believes in lowering tariff barriers and promoting economic integration in the Asia-Pacific region, covering trade in goods and services, technical cooperation, government procurement and other areas.
At a recent seminar held in Bangkok on the challenges and opportunities for garment exports to the US, an American lobbyist, Thomas Travis, managing partner of Sandler, Travis and Rosenberg, said Thai companies should try to push the government to move forward either through the Thai-US FTA or the TPP.
Exporters and the government should work together and come up with a roadmap to convince the US to restart free-trade talks, he said.
The Thai-US free-trade talks have been put on the back burner for about two years due to US politics and different ideas of the two countries.
Although the US does not want textiles and garments included in TPP negotiations, the TPP's intersessional round in Peru last month touched on textiles.
Since the US is one of the biggest export markets, Thailand should do anything to become her most favoured partner, otherwise the Kingdom will lose competitiveness, Travis said. Thailand would lag behind other Asean countries - Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam - that are involved in the TPP negotiations.
Particularly Vietnam, whose garment exports are more exposed in the US market with exports reaching 875,622 pieces in the first half of this year, making Vietnam the second biggest exporter after China who had a record 4.12 million pieces in the same period.
Indonesia and Cambodia have also greatly ramped up their garment shipments to the US market, ranking fourth and eighth. Thailand was 11th after Pakistan.
Exports to the US market face high competition since import quotas were removed in 2008. Other exporters have also emerged such as Honduras, Mexico, India, El Salvador and Pakistan.
Thailand should position itself to maintain its share of the lucrative market, he said.
The US import records of textiles and apparel from Thailand showed brassieres controlled the second biggest share there while ranking No 1 in the world in the first half of this year. Underwear ranked the fifth biggest in the US but is the world's No 2.
Thailand should approach the US market with certain products that can gain champion status, he said.
Thailand's trade advantages, including the generalised system of preferences and Andean Trade Preferences Act, granted by the US, will expire by the end of this year.
The Andean Trade Preferences Act was enacted in December 1991 to help four Andean countries - Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru - in their fight against drug production and trafficking by expanding their economic alternatives.
The US is planning to reform this preferences programme while making labour standards tougher. Less developed countries such as Cambodia and Bangladesh could get duty-free benefits for apparel. Customs enforcement also keeps rising and more restrictions are placed on textiles, yarn, fabrics and garments.
Those factors give importers a difficult time purchasing products. Politics in the US is also another important factor in who are the favoured trading partners of this administration, he added.