Promoting Thailand's national culinary heritage
See "Exim Bank to promote Thai food overseas" (business, page front page)By Jon Fernquest
[Introduction|Vocabulary|Article]
[Reading Questions|Answers]
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Thai cuisine is part of Thailand's national heritage dating back thousands of years.
The Export-Import Bank of Thailand has been working with the Department of Export Promotions to promote Thai cuisine overseas.
In cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles in the United States, cities with large Thai populations, Thai restaurants have long been the most popular restaurants along with Mexican and Chinese cuisines.
In cities without large Thai populations there are fewer Thai restaurants and proper ingredients are sometimes lacking. It is very disappointing when a restaurant uses chili powder [Prik Thai Pon] instead of real chillis [Prik Thai], for instance.
Clearly there is a role for the Thai government in promoting standards and making sure high quality ingredients are readily available around the world.
One could go even further with promoting national cuisine. South Korea is a good example with a Kim Chi museum in Seoul's World Trade Center that has a 2,000 volume library devoted to Korea's national cuisine [museum, article].
How many Thai foods can you describe in English? Sometimes it is rather difficult because Thai cuisine does not use the same ingredients as western food. Today's article also describes the efforts to promote education and knowledge of Thai cuisine overseas.
For further reading you might want to check out this Thai food weblog with a quiz.
Reading Questions
Here are some questions to guide your reading (See answers at end):1. What is special about the loans that the Export-Import Bank of Thailand is offering to Thai restaurants in foreign countries?
2. Why is the export-import bank offering these special loans?
3. What is the targeted annual growth rate in overseas Thai restaurants?
4. What is the name of the quality certification program currently being used for Thai restaurants overseas? Where is it being used? What department sponsors it?
5. How can overseas Thai restaurants qualify for the special loan program?
6. What countries is the export-import bank considering opening offices in?
7. Why is the export-import bank planning to expand? What is the role of the Thai restaurant promotion program in the export-import bank's expansion plans? (Note: Thai language library and/or internet research required here)
8. What kind of restaurants are included in the National Food Institute's three franchise models ?
9. Which agency is educating chefs to alleviate the shortage of qualified chefs for work overseas? How many chefs do they train each year?
10. How long is the training program for overseas chefs? Is this long enough? Why or why not?
Article
RESTAURANTS / GLOBAL EXPANSION
Exim Bank to promote Thai food overseas
SOMPORN THAPANACHAI
New York - The Export-Import Bank of Thailand (Exim) will offer low-interest loans with flexible conditions for owners of overseas Thai restaurants.
The plan is to support the expansion of Thai restaurants abroad from 9,183 outlets recorded in 2005 to 20,000 by 2008.
The bank will co-operate with the Department of Export Promotion (DEP), responsible for helping to source equipment and ingredients for Thai kitchens, and the National Food Institute, which supplies and trains chefs.
The DEP has awarded the Thai Select mark to 60 restaurants in New York to satisfy consumers that their quality is up to the required standards.
Apichai Boontherawara, Exim's president, said that restaurants with majority Thai ownership and at least one year of overseas management experience, or three years experience in Thailand, could apply for a baht- or dollar-denominated loan to set up a restaurant overseas.
A baht loan would be charged the bank's prime interest rate plus 1.5%, while a dollar loan would be priced at Libor rate plus 3.5%.
Thai Select restaurants would get a discount of 0.25 percentage points, but the bank would consider extending this to 0.5% or 1%, in the future.
Dr Apichai said the bank would require collateral of 30% to 50% of the loan and a debt-to-equity ratio of one time for restaurants wanting to expand branches, two times for new restaurants and three times for franchised restaurants.
The bank requires collateral to be situated in Thailand because it only has branches in Thailand. But the Exim Bank will co-operate with Krung Thai Bank and foreign banks to consider granting loans to restaurants with a guarantee.
Exim Bank will also consider expanding its overseas offices in the US, Europe, Japan and China.
Last year, the bank approved about 76 Thai restaurant projects worth about 526 million baht in loans and is now considering another 58 applicants.
Yuttasak Supatsorn, the deputy director of the National Food Institute, said the institute had created three franchise models for fast-food businesses: Ruamsen, a noodle shop concept; Kaokaeng, for rice with various toppings; and Tonhom is an open kitchen for shopping malls.
Mr Yuttasak said the government was aware of the lack of Thai chefs, so the institute was training 360 chefs per year to help work at overseas restaurants.
Each chef is required to pass a 120-hour training programme for certification
The institution also has about 100 tutors ready to go abroad to provide short training courses to existing Thai chefs, and a 90-hour training programme for overseas Thais who want to take cooking up as a new career. The first training session will be conducted in Malaysia next month.
Restaurant owners in New York said the biggest problem in opening restaurants in the US was a shortage of chefs that could be solved only once Thailand had come to an immigration agreement with the US government.
They added that 120-hours of training was insufficient, as it required many years of experience to run a kitchen of an authentic Thai restaurant with from 100 to 200 items on the menu.
Vocabulary (in article)
source equipment and ingredients, sourcing - procurement, purchasing, finding supplies at the right cost, at the right time and place, (See Wikipedia's articles on Procurement and Strategic sourcing)
dollar-denominated loan - the amount of the loan is valued in dollars
bank's prime interest rate - the lowest interest rate that banks charge to their best customers with high credit ratings, usually short-term loans for large amounts
Libor rate - the standard interest rate used in US financial markets, changes less than the prime rate, used to set variable-rate loans including credit cards and adjustable-rate mortgages, LIBOR means "London Inter Bank Offer Rate" which is interest rate of London's wholesale money markets.(Source: www.go-to-debt-consolidation.com/debt/glossaryL.asp)
collateral - a valuable asset that can be taken by the lender if the loan is not repaid
default on a loan - not paying back loan to lender
debt to equity ratio - measures how much a business if financing itself with bank loans versus capital from owner-investors, as the debt-equity ratio increases the likelihood of default increases (that is some bad event happens and the business is unable to repay the loan to the bank)
loan guarantee - a promise to repay the loan if something goes wrong
take up cooking, take cooking up - when you "take up" some activity you start learning how to do it as a hobby or for an occupation [Thai: achib] (Note: phrasal verbs with two words like this "take + up" allow the object to be inserted into the middle "take cooking up" or not "take up cooking")
authentic - the real thing, not a fake or copy, genuine
Answer Key:
1. What is special about the loans that the Export-Import Bank of Thailand is offering to Thai restaurants in foreign countries?
They have low interest rates and flexible conditions.
2. Why is the export-import bank offering these special loans?
It wants to increase the number of Thai restaurants in foreign countries.
3. What is the targeted annual growth rate in overseas Thai restaurants?
Overseas Thai restaurant growth is targeted at 73% per year. (From 9,183 to 20,000 over three years).
4. What is the name of the quality certification program currently being used for Thai restaurants overseas? Where is it being used? What Thai government department sponsors it?
The Department of Export Promotion of the Thai government issues the "Thai Select" mark to restaurants in New York city in the United States.
5. How can overseas Thai restaurants qualify for the special loan program?
Restaurants have to have majority Thai ownership and management experience (one year overseas or three years in Thailand). They also have to put up collateral in Thailand of 30% to 50% of the loan value have an appropriate debt-equity ratio (branch expansion - 1.0, 2.0 - new restaurants, franchises - 3.0).
6. What countries is the export-import bank considering opening offices in?
It's considering opening offices in the US, Europe, Japan, and China.
7. Why is the export-import bank planning to expand? What is the role of the Thai restaurant promotion program in the export-import bank's expansion plans? (Note: Thai language library and/or internet research required here)
[Further research outside article required]
8. What kind of restaurants are included in the National Food Institute's three franchise models ?
Three kinds of restaurants: 1. A noodle shop, 2. "rice with various toppings" [khao laad kaeng]
and 3. "an open kitchen for shopping malls."
9. Which agency is educating chefs to alleviate the shortage of qualified chefs for work overseas? How many chefs do they train each year?
The National Food Institute trains about 360 chefs per year to work in Thai restaurants overseas.
10. How long is the training program for overseas chefs? Is this long enough? Why or why not?
The training program for overseas chefs takes 120 hours. According to restaurant owners in New York city this is not enough. It takes many years to master the preparation of the many dishes (100 to 200). In an authentic Thai restaurant, so most of the training is probably still on the the job training.
