Commerce Minister Suphajee Suthumpun has explained why she decided to team up with an influential online vendor, ‘Pimrypie’, to sell durian online at 100 baht per fruit on Tuesday.
The live commerce event to sell durian attracted about 800,000 viewers and about 200,000 orders within a few hours. The program has also attracted both praise and criticism. The Economic party, for instance, has called for the resignation of Suphajee if she cannot solve the oversupply problem of durian, while the opposition People’s party suggested that the minister should appear before parliament to explain the durian problem.
In her Facebook post on Thursday, the commerce minister said she decided to leverage live commerce, an unconventional channel for durian, to sell the fruit to help the growers because of the ministry had recognises worrisome signs vis-à-vis durian prices.
The signs include a 33% larger supply than last year, extreme hot weather, which will make the fruits smaller and of a lower grade, global economic volatility which will mean that consumers are increasingly cautious about their spending, and increased transportation costs.
She said that she had to do something now to address the anticipated problems, instead of waiting until the market is flooded with durian when it would be too late.
The Commerce Ministry has decided to take a pro-active approach, whether it is the promotion of domestic consumption of small-sized durian, which are delicious but at affordable prices, or the promotion via live commerce, so consumers can buy the fruit directly from the growers, rather than depending on the middlemen, said Suphajee in her post.
Moreover, she said the Commerce Ministry has explored new markets for Thai durian, such South Korea, India and the United Arab Emirates, instead of just China, adding that officials have been sent to explore transportation routes through northern Vietnam into southern China.
“What we have been doing is to build a new market mechanism for our durian growers to stimulate demand, especially for small-sized durian, which are called ‘Super Small Durian’, so they become more marketable and their prices increase,” she said.
“We are making changes,” she maintains, adding that some people may not understand, so there are people who agree with us and those who fiercely criticize us, but she said she is willing to take the blame today in order that the durian growers will not suffer in the future.
Several durian growers said that the Commerce Ministry’s promotion campaign has attracted widespread interest, but the 100 baht/fruit price is unrealistic because production costs are higher.
They say that they would like the ex-farm price of durian to be at least 100 baht/kg, which should cover their costs.
