Nonthaburi, The Permanent Secretary of Commerce coordinated with 8 agencies to urgently implement serious law enforcement measures to stop substandard and cheap imported goods, both offline and online channels, which pose a risk to consumer safety. He will also go to the area to urgently inspect Bangkok within 1-2 days. If any illegal goods are found to have been imported, legal action will be taken immediately.
Mr. Wutthikrai Leewiraphan, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Commerce, said after a meeting with relevant agencies to find a solution to the problem of importing substandard and cheap products that have flooded into the country in large quantities via e-commerce and various checkpoints due to rapidly changing trade patterns. From the original trade pattern of ordering products from factories to sell through domestic wholesalers and retailers, both wholesalers and retailers, and then the products will be sold to consumers, but now the new trade pattern has become factories selling products throu
gh online platforms and delivering them directly to consumers. This new business model has caused changes to all value chains in Thailand, which may affect both small, medium and large Thai entrepreneurs.
The 8 main agencies, such as the Ministry of Finance, including the Customs Department, the Revenue Department, the Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society (DES), the Ministry of Public Health from the Food and Drug Administration, The Office of Board of Investment (BOI), the Office of the Consumer Protection Board, the Department of Special Investigation (DSI), the Electronic Transactions Development Agency (ETDA) to cope with the rapid change in trade formats, causing existing laws to be out of date.
In addition, the government will have measures to take care of imported products that affect Thai consumers and entrepreneurs, taking into account the quality of life and livelihood. It will be strict on the standards of imported products that must be certified, regarding food safet
y, and the Thai Industrial Standards Institute, both offline and online trade. Because in the initial random inspection of imported products sold in Thailand, it was found that some sellers were not Thais and some did not have visas, labor permits, or registered as commercial or legal entities. Therefore, the Ministry of Commerce will work in integration with relevant agencies to inspect the areas throughout Bangkok. If any illegal acts are found, legal action will be taken under the laws of each agency. In addition, cooperation has been requested from the Customs Department to urgently submit information on the first 10 imported products as soon as possible to see which items are essential goods, raw materials for production, or for consumption only, to be used as information for consideration in issuing further measures.
However, the relevant agencies have been asked to look into the law that can force online sales to have a sales representative office located in Thailand or not. Initially, we received inf
ormation from the Electronic Transactions Development Agency (ETDA) that there is a law that requires all types of online sales operators to register under the Digital Platform Service Business Act B.E. 2565, Section 18, Paragraphs 2 and 3, which can cover digital platforms. Currently, we are looking into whether if the digital platform has customers in Thailand and conducts online financial transactions via electronic transactions in Thailand, even if the e-commerce platform is not located in Thailand, measures should be issued to take care of it because the law states that if any digital platform service has specific characteristics and poses a risk to financial and commercial security, reliability and acceptance in the electronic data system, or damage that may occur to the public, and has a high level of impact that may arise from the business operations of that platform, this law can be used to take care of it. The measures that will be issued will take care of the impacts in the short and medium term fi
rst, with an emphasis on stricter enforcement of the law. For the long-term problem, further discussions will be required.
Source : Thai News Agency