Phuket Business: Trade booming

PHUKET: Two-thirds of the way into the government’s current fiscal year, international trade in Phuket is thriving, with the value of both imports and exports looking likely to surpass last year’s record-high performance.

Phuket Customs’ records through to May 31 show that the value of exports in 2012 (October 1, 2011 to September 30, 2012) is now at 11.11bn baht – just 1.4bn baht shy of the previous year’s total.

Meanwhile, the value of imports is up to 1.59bn baht, compared to 2.12bn baht reported last year.

With four months still to go before the fiscal year is over, Phuket’s trade surplus of exports over imports has already cleared the 90% mark to matching last year’s figure of 10.39 billion baht.

Indeed, the total value of trade – the sum of exports and imports – is rapidly approaching the 13bn baht mark, close to last year’s full-year figure of 14.6bn baht.

Phuket’s top export this year, by far, has been block rubber, with exports of the commodity currently valued at 8.1bn baht.

This is followed by rubber fiberboard (1.6bn baht), motorboats and related components (1.1bn baht), live fish (96.1mn baht) and frozen fish (77.8mn baht).

Topping the list of imports by value is cargo vessels (545mn baht), followed by sports and leisure vessels (420mn baht), chilled fish (408mn baht), frozen fish (145mn baht) and boiler components (40mn baht).

— Steven Layne