OTOP City Exhibition

Visitors at the Third OTOP City; OPOT or One Tampon One Product, being held from December 17-25 at the IMPACT Trade and Exhibition Centre in Muang Thong Thani, Nonthaburi Province, Thailand, on the outskirts of Bangkok are recommended cheap and high quality products produced by local residents in Thailand's southern region and by persons with disabilities (PWDs). The Interior Ministry's Community Development Department has invited the visitors to support the southern OTOP goods, particularly those from the country's three troubled southernmost provinces of Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani and those from six Andaman coastal provinces hit by the last December tsunami, including Phuket, Phang-nga, Krabi, Trang, Ranong and Satun. The Ministry of Social Development and Human Security's Bureau of Welfare Promotion and Protection of Children, Youths, the Disadvantages, Persons with Disabilities and Olders Persons has, on the other hand, encouraged the visitors to support OTOP goods of PWDs. "I'd like to invite people to support the OTOP products from the three troubled southern provinces and from the six tsunami-hit provinces, whose booths are located in the Challenger 3 Building inside the IMPACT. The southern OTOP products are in good quality and cheap," the department's deputy director-general Sayumporn Limthai told journalists here on Sunday. Similar remarks were made by Social Development and Human Security Ministry officials for OTOP products produced by PWDs. The Public Health Ministry's Department of Traditional and Alternative Medicine Development has also invited the visitors to try traditional Thai massage services provided at the nine-day OTOP City fair, saying the services are expected to generate income to local Thai massagers about Bt one million, or at least Bt 300 per person per day. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra himself has invited members of the general public to visit the annual grand trade fair, in which nearly 5,000 booths of selected community-base products from all parts of the country are displayed. The premier promised that his administration would continue to fully support the OTOP scheme, as it has successfully generate economic activities and people's incomes from the grassroots level. Community-based products from Thailand's neighbouring countries, including Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar and Vietnam, are also showcased for the first time this year. The government projects that this year's OTOP City fair, under the theme of "The Miracle of Thai Wisdom … OTOP to the World", will attract about 1.4 million visitors and generate up to Bt1.1 billion revenues. The nine-day event opens from 09:00 a.m.-10:00 p.m. daily. Source From: MCOT NEWS