The trend of setting up a national inventory of chemicals – already seen in China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan – is moving south. The Philippines and Vietnam have existing inventories, while Laos, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia also have plans for one.
Despite regulatory hurdles that might have caused due to disparate regulations and approaches across the region, the overall trend – if slower than other regions – is a shift in focus from primarily GHS-based requirements towards more comprehensive, risk-based chemicals management regimes that mandate registration before use.
Thailand
Name
Thailand
ISO
TH
Region
South East Asia & Indian Continent
Risk
Deforestation
Yes
Transhipment
Yes
Labour Rights & H&S
Yes
Environment
No
Biodiversity
Yes
Forest Area
Land Area
51,089,000
ha
Forest Area
16,429,000
ha (32.2%)
FSC Forest Area
61,830
ha (0.4%)
FSC CoCs
115
PEFC CoCs
12
Paper Mills 7
| Mill |
|---|
| Ban Pong Plant Thai Paper Co. |
|
| Environment Pulp and Paper Company Limited Environment Pulp and Paper Company Limited |
|
| Oji Paper (Thailand) Ltd. Oji Paper Group |
|
| PMC Label Materials Co Ltd. Paper Multi Coatings Pte. Ltd |
|
| Thai KK Japan Pulp and Paper Co Limited |
|
| Thai Paper Co. Ltd Thai Paper Co. Ltd |
|
| Thatoom Aa |
Forest Legislations 1
Southeast Asia – are chemical controls taking hold?
Chemical Watch, 4 Dec 2019
Asian factory workers face slavery risks with rise of automation in manufacturing: analysts
The Japan Times, 12 Jul 2018
The rise of robots in manufacturing in Southeast Asia is likely to fuel modern-day slavery as workers who end up unemployed due to automation face abuses competing for a shrinking pool of low-paid jobs in a “race to the bottom”. Especially, the workers in Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines — at least 137 million people — risk losing their jobs because of the automation in the next two decades. Those workers are more vulnerable to workplace abuses as they jostle for fewer jobs at lower wages.
Workers claiming they had to sleep with the chickens face Thai court charges
Guardian, 6 Jun 2017
Burmese migrants charged with defamation after alleging labour abuses in Thailand’s multimillion-pound poultry export industry. The Burmese migrants allege they were forced to work 22-hour days at Thammakaset Farm 2, at times having to sleep in the chicken sheds with 30,000 hens. They also said their freedom of movement was severely restricted. Thailand’s important and well publicised efforts to systematically address migrant worker exploitation are seriously undermined as migrants cannot speak up.
Haze crisis cost Indonesia almost 2% of GDP, World Bank says
Todayonline, 21 Jan 2016
According to the World Bank, forest fires in Indonesia last year caused the country at least $16 billion economic losses, which is equivalent to 1.9 percent of its GDP. The haze caused by the fire blanketed Singapore, parts of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand in September and October, which was cleared by the rainy season in early November. Many of the fires were set by smallholders and companies to clear land for agriculture, especially palm oil, which makes it difficult for Indonesian authorities to respond to the fires.
Tropical forests may be vanishing even faster than previously thought
The Washington Post, 26 Feb 2015
While estimates from various UN bodies claim “decreasing deforestation rates and increased afforestation” over recent years, a new study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters indicates a 62% acceleration in net deforestation in the humid tropics from the 1990s to the 2000s. The new study used satellite images to examine the tropical forests of 34 countries, including Brazil, Indonesia and Thailand, that collectively house 80 percent of the world’s tropical forest area. Brazil “dominated” tropical forest losses, according to the study, showing a 33 percent acceleration in the amount of forest that was lost over the time period. According to the researchers the difference is because the UN mostly uses country based self-reporting rather than analysis of satellite data. The drought currently hitting Brazil has in part been blamed on deforestation.