JEDDAH, 30 December — Some 7,000 Thai pilgrims, 1,000 more than last year, are expected to perform Haj this time, according to Thai Consul General Makata Ma. "We expect our country’s economy to turn the corner in 2002. We thus hope for more pilgrims to come," he said yesterday.
As many as 23,000 Thai pilgrims performed Haj in 1996, but since then their number dropped due to economic reasons. "We hope the number will steadily increase in the future with our economy looking up," Ma said on the occasion of the 74th birth anniversary of Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej, which was celebrated recently.
Eight percent of Thailand’s 62 million population are Muslim, he said, adding that Thai students were pursuing religious and general studies in Makkah, Madinah and Riyadh.
Ma hoped that relations between the Kingdom and Thailand would improve as his government has re-launched investigations into the murder of three Saudi diplomats and a businessman in Bangkok some 12 years ago.
He said both business and tourist traffic remained affected in the past years. Last year, about 13,000 people traveled to Thailand from this part of the world for business and tourism.
Thai business delegations took part in trade exhibitions held in Jeddah and Riyadh. Thai joint ventures are in the field of restaurant and food. In Jeddah alone there are four Thai restaurants and two food markets.
The volume of trade, however, increased from $1.14 billion in 1995 to $1.47 billion in 2000. Thai exports to the Kingdom were worth $299.9 million and imports from the Kingdom $1.17 billion last year.
Aside from oil and petroleum products, the Kingdom’s exports to that country include gold and silver jewelry, iron and steel, footwear and textiles and glass and pottery. Food items and consumer durables form bulk of Thai exports to the Kingdom. The trade is heavily tilted in favor of the Kingdom.
Thai expatriates currently number 30,000 mostly working in the construction sector as against 280,000 during the boom period 20 years ago. Ma said Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was committed to improve relations between the two countries. To achieve this he recently set up a national committee on reinvestigation of cases involving Saudis. "We hope to speed up the process with the cooperation of Saudi authorities. We’ll welcome a high level Saudi delegation to visit our country in this regard," Ma said.
He added that the Thai authorities had arrested some suspects in the past, but they were released in the absence of strong evidence against them.
