ผลกระทบจากการยกเลิกระบบโควตาการส่งออกน้ำตาลของไทยที่มีผลต่ออุตสาหกรรมน้ำตาล

Abstract

The sugar industry of Thailand significantly contributes to the Thai economic system since the sugar industry heightens the employment rates and also generates income for the country from sugar exports. Thailand comes in second place in the world in terms of exporting sugar. Presently, international trades have become more independent and accord to the World Trade Organization (WTO). The impeachment of Brazil drives Thailand to restructure its sugarcane and sugar industry by floating the national sugar price between the year 2017/18 and 2018/19. The purpose of this study is to analyze the problems, obstacles, and effects of the abolition of Thailand's sugar exports quota system on the Thai sugar industry. And to find a solution to the situation and create the policy formulation by applying the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP), which is the Computable Gencral Equilibrium (CGE Model) to analyze the conomic impact on the sugar industry and the economy of Thailand. The result of the research is showed that the abolition of the sugar exports causes the sugar industry to lose stability in terms of quantity. As the international sugar price fluctuates, it is shown that the problem caused by the shift of the sugar policy leads to the production consequences of sugarcane farmers. The decline of the sugar production was imputable to the lack of price motivation by the sugarcane farmers as the minor sugarcane farmers, who are prone to means of production, were pressured to go out of the sugar industry. Additionally, the marketing problems such as the short-term price competition can lead to the long-term monopolization of sugar products if the sugar industry loses stability in terms of both quantity and price. Considering the effects on quantity from a simulated situation of WTO's trade liberalization by lowering the tariff equivalent to zero, it is found that the resource allocation of Thailand's sugar industry has heightened, based on the net economic welfare using money as an indicator that was increased by 9.80 million USD. Taking into account that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) expansion rate has only raised a little by 0.0002 percent since the import of sugar have increased by 1 17.71 percent whereas the export rates have increased by only 0.05 percent causing a trade deficit of 37.70 million USD. As this research investigated the sugar industry by liberalizing the trade, it was found that the domestic sugar price has lowered by only 0.01 percent, at the same time, the domestic production rate of sugar has lowered by 1.06 percent making the domestic consumable sugar became scarcer at 2.99 percent. Thus, Thailand should not fully liberalize the trade of sugar products. The government should plan to manage sugar for domestic needs, and they should not decrease the sugar's tariff in order to preserve the domestic sugar industry. Moreover, the government may support the development of the sugarcane farms which are considered as the upstream company to maintain the stability of the sugar industry onwards.