Oil price hike prompts protest from Thai truckers

Pramote Kongthong, president of the Northeastern Transport Operators Association, has revealed that 449 members owning more than 10,000 trucks in Thailand had taken almost half of their trucks out of service on May 23 because their businesses could not keep pace with the rising cost of fuel. Should the diesel price continue to surge to 40 baht per liter (US$1.20), he believed, the transport operators would have more than 1,000 trucks out of service, making a big bottleneck for the transport in the region. Pramote said the association was not indifferent to the situation. It had already complained about the operators’ hardship to the government, starting as long ago as when the price of diesel fuel was 25 baht per liter (US$0.75). But he said the complaint was unheeded by the government, despite the fact that the transport sector is a key part of the economic system. (May 23, 2008)