[Thai cane and sugar industry in future]

Problems of rising labor wages, scarcity of cane-cutting labor and inability of cane growers to expand planting areas in the Eastern and the Western Central regions of Thailand, incorporating with the past government policy in allowing the locational shifting and the capacity expansion of the sugar factories have caused the relocation of many sugar factories from the two disadvantage regions to the Northeastern, the lower-Northern and the central-Central regions of Thailand. Impacts of such locational shifting and capacity expansion had caused the rapid growth of cane planting area as well as cane and sugar production during the past decade. Cane planting area of the whole kingdom increased from 4.08 million rai in the production year 1982/83 to 6.06 million rai in the production year 1991/1992, while cane production of the whole kingdom increased from 24 million tons to 47.50 million tons and sugar production increased from 2.22 million tons to 4.88 million tons during the same period. These changes had turned the North-east, the lower-North and the central-Central regions to become major cane and sugar production areas of Thailand. The cane planting area of the whole kingdom will be approximately 3.38-7.04 million rai in the production year 2001/02, while the cane production will be approximately 54.22-76.48 million tons and sugar production will be approximately 6.72-11.40 million tons, depending upon assumptions of the forecasting techniques. It was also forecasted that more cane-cutting and cane-loading machines will be used to replace human labor in the near future. Efficiency of cane and sugar production which has been increased in the past decade is forecasted to continue this trend to the next decade. Average cane yield per rai increased from 5.86 tons in the production year 1982/83 to 7.84 tons in the production year 1991/92, while the sugar sweetness value (brixity) slightly increased and the total sugar production at 96 pol.per one equivalent cane ton at 10 C.C.S increased from 94.02 kilograms in the production year 1982/83 to 100.84 kilograms in the production year 1991/92. Sugar domestic consumption is composed of the household consumption (70 percent) and industrial use (30 percent) is also forecasted to be increased. The total domestic consumption of sugar increased from 0.63 million tons in 1983 to 1.17 million tons in 1992 and is forecasted to be approximately 1.75-2.94 million tons in 2002. Sugar export also increased parallel with its production. Sugar export volume increased from 1.54 million tons in 1983 to 3.52 million tons in 1992. Sugar export will be approximately 3.78-5.14 million tons in 2002. The sugar world market in the next decade is forecasted to be more favorable than that of the past decade, causing higher average export price than that of the past decade.