The cabinet meeting on Tuesday 2, January 2010 has come to the following decision:
The Cabinet approved drafting the Regulations of the Office of the Prime Minister on Coordination in expressing opinions of independent entity on schemes or activities that might cause effects toward the community seriously and agreed to set up a committee called “Coordinating in Expressing Opinions of Independent Entity Committee” to determine the method of coordination in establishment and operation of the independent entity (temporarily) as proposed by the committee to solve issue in accordance with Section 67 Paragraph 2 of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand.
The Cabinet approved the principle of the Food Industry Master Plan B.E. 2010-2014 as proposed by the Ministry of Industry in order to be the method for organizations in doing the action plan. The Cabinet also assigned the Ministry of Industry to coordinate with concerned organizations from both state and private sectors in doing the Action Plans through mechanism of the National Industrial Development Board for prioritizing significance of the schemes which would be operated in the next five years, as well the budget, following up, and evaluation. The Bureau of the Budget was directed to use the Food Industry Master Plan for reviewing budget allocation in the area of food industry of each ministry.
Vision : “Thailand will lead the world food industry, focusing on adding value and safety for consumers”
Objective : To improve Thai food industry with the clear direction, goal, and method of food industry development systematically and holistically. It could be adjusted to be in line with the stream of changes of the world and country development that had changed according to the environments of economy, society, and politics. That enabled the state sector and concerned organization to jointly determine the integrated policy on food industry in order to develop the productivity improvement and to increase potentials in food product export of Thailand. Moreover, consumers both in Thailand and in foreign countries could be confident in quality and safety of Thai food product which would create value and increase market share of Thailand in every group of food products tangibly.
Goal :
Increased the value of Thai food product export at least ten percent per year
Increased the proportion of the value of processed food export at least 60 percent of the total food export value
The production standard of Thai Food Factories needed to be guaranteed at the international level at least 50 percent of total factories.
Thai food product must have a vivid image in terms of quality and health
Thailand must have the standard of domestic food equal to international standard.
2.4 The content of strategic framework, divided into two parts;
2.4.1 Strategies in developing overall food industry, there are 4 strategies;
- Strategy 1 Value creation on products in food industry
- Strategy 2 Development and upgrading the standard of agricultural and food products production of the whole country
- Strategy 3 Creating consumer awareness and upgrading image of food product
- Strategy 4 Creating environment which enhanced the potentials of competitive competency of the food industry
2.4.2 Strategies in developing food industry in product group level, divided into 2 groups
(1) Primary processing industry group, 4 strategies are;
- Strategy 1 Developing raw material standard and production system
- Strategy 2 Enhancing technology application and knowledge to create competitive competency for the primary processing industry
- Strategy 3 Improving and developing product transportation system
- Strategy 4 Creating the image of primary processed food product of Thailand to be acceptable in the world market
(2) Processed food industry group, 3 strategies are;
- Strategy 1 Creating innovation and bringing technology to increase the efficiency in production system
- Strategy 2 Supporting and developing quality and safety of Thai processed food
- Strategy 3 Developing marketing strategies for Thai processed food product
Scheme of providing more professional nurses in order to ease the problem in the Southern Provinces
The Cabinet approved 3 proposals of the Ministry of Public Health as following;
1. Moved or changed 10 students whose study results do not pass the criteria for studying in Nursing Science, Bachelor of Nursing Science Program, 4-year curriculum, to study in the high vocational curriculum, public health (community health), 2-year curriculum instead.
2. 10 students were allowed to still receive the right to transfer to the civil service after graduation.
3. Using the budget from the previous scheme in accordance with the cabinet resolution on 16 June 2009 to be educational fund for the ten students.
The Cabinet approved the proposal of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs proposing the Foreign Affairs Minister to jointly draft the authority framework of the High Level Task Force on connection among ASEAN and draft the Revised MOU on the Establishment of the ASEAN Foundation during the ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Retreat in Da Nang, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. If there were necessaries in amending the draft document which was not significant content or obstruct Thailand’s benefits, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs could operate without referring the matter to the Cabinet for review.
Content
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that the Socialist Republic of Vietnam would host the ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Retreat during 13-14 January 2010, Da Nang. In this meeting, significant documents were passed as following.
1. Draft Authority Framework of the High Level Panel on connectivity among ASEAN
The content was about setting up ASEAN High Level Task Force to study the connectivity among ASEAN, including connection with other regions, to working on the ASEAN master plan between regions and review mechanism method of financial support in order to enhancing being the centre of ASEAN in the region, including maintaining significance of ASEAN in being the core of the region that was changing. It was a operation according to the declaration of ASEAN Leaders’ Statement on ASEAN Connectivity during the 15th ASEAN Summit on 24 October 2009.
2. Draft the Revised MOU on the Establishment of the ASEAN Foundation
The content was about adjusting the structure and internal authority of ASEAN Foundation to be in line with ASEAN Charter and to make the ASEAN Foundation able to conduct activities enhancing awareness of ASEAN, involvement of the public, social development, and poverty elimination efficiently, including supporting procedure of ASEAN community establishment.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs had already considered both documents and saw that they were only the framework of organizations in ASEAN to set the work method and enhance efficiency in jointly working without signing. Therefore, this was not an agreement according to Section 190 of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand B.E. 2007.
25. Report of the result of World Summit on Food Security and 36th FAO Conference of the Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister
The Cabinet acknowledged and agreed as the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives proposed as following.
1. Acknowledged the reports of the results of World Summit on Food Security and 36th FAO Conference of the Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister
2. Assigned the concerned organizations, such as the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security, and the Ministry of Public health, to expedite solving the problem of Thai food security.
The contents of the matter
The Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives reported that
1. As the Prime Minister approved the Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister to join the World Summit on Food Security during 16-18 November 2009 and the 36th FAO Conference during 18-23 November 2009 at FAO Headquarter, Rome, Republic of Italy, the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives reported the result of the meetings as following.
1.1 The objective of the meeting was to urge countries to jointly eliminate starvation seriously. In the conference, there were 3,600 representatives from 182 countries/organizations, 60 persons were representatives in government leader level and 191 persons in the cabinet level. The content of the conference could be summarized as following.
1.1.1 The Meeting adopted the Declaration declaring the political will of the member countries in eliminating hunger and paying attention to creating food security and eliminating poverty with the goal of reducing half of the number of people encountering starving and malnutrition within 2015
1.1.2 United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stated during the opening of the summit that the food crisis at the moment was a wake-up call for tomorrow and there can be no food security without climate security.
1.2 The Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister gave the speech urging countries to expedite creating food and stated that Thailand supported free trade system and hoped that it could come to conclusion during the Doha Round. Moreover, the Agriculture and Cooperatives referred to the ASEAN Summit with China, Japan, and Republic of Korea result that the leaders agreed to set up ASEAN plus Three Emergency Rice Reserve to be permanent mechanism to maintain food security in the region which could bring about the world food security as well.
2. In the 36th FAO Conference, there were 164 members from 164 attending the conference. Dr. Kathleen A. Merrigan, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, was chosen to chair the conference. The content of the meeting is as following.
2.1 The conference acknowledged the operating result of the CoC-IEE on the Immediate Plan of Action for FAO Renewal, the report of food and agricultural situation of the world, and the report of operating results of sub-committees in various areas.
2.2 The main points of the leader of member country representatives are preparation and response to threats, especially natural disaster and emergency aid, or crisis.
2.3 The Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister reiterated the main factors which contributed negative affect toward food security, especially disasters which were caused by the climate change. Asia became the region that faced the most natural disasters. As for Thailand, the National Action Plans on disaster management B.E. 2010 — 2019 with the aim of prevention, effects relief, and recovery
2.4 The conference approved the Strategic Framework 2010-2019, with the vision of world free of hunger and malnutrition
2.5 The conference approved the Agreement on Port State Measures to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal , Unreported and Unregulated Fishing by allowing members to vote. However, the agreement had a legal binding which the member countries had to follow and it might be in the scope of Section 190 of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand. The Thai representative, as a result, abstained and did not sign the agreement in the assembly. However, the agreement benefited fishery publicly and benefited Thailand as well. The Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, therefore, viewed that the dialogue between the concerned organizations to review being a member according to the process, including amending domestic laws or regulations to support following the agreement.
2.6 As the 2 terms (4 year) of positioning of the current Iranian Independent chairman of the council who chaired the conference of the FAO council would end, there had to an election and the result was that Mr. Luc Guyan was voted to be the new Independent chairman of the FAO council.
3.1 This conference was not paid attention by the industrial countries or G8 since there was none of the high level representatives of the G8 attend the meeting. Only the Italian Prime Minister attended the opening ceremony as the host country.
3.2 According to the continuous organization reformation of the FAO since 2008, including doing the strategic framework and plan, and new budget to make it more responsive to the need and necessity of the member countries. The FAO assembly approved the budget of the fiscal year 2010-2011 (2 year) higher than the previous fiscal year around 8 percent, it made the member countries to pay more member fee. Thailand had to pay around 2.5-3 million baht more (depending on currency exchange), from paying 3.65 million baht a year in the fiscal year 2008-2009, to 34 million baht in the fiscal year 2010-2011.
3.3 Although the number of starving people in Thailand was decreasing, according the information of the FAO during 2004-2006, it was found that there were around 10.7 million persons or 17 percent of the total country population, which was considered high. Hence, Thailand should focus on the food security as there were some groups of people who could not approach food and did not have lands or did not have enough lands. The starving people group did various occupations in urban area and upcountry, which were in charge of many ministries. The task was agreed to assign to related organizations, for example the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security, the Ministry of Public Health to expedite solving the problem straightly to the point.
--Cabinet Meeting (Abhisit Vejjajiva) January 12, 2010--