Thai-Cambodian border market quiet, empty due to contraband crackdowns

A Thai-Cambodian border market, which has earlier thrived on pirated and second-hand goods, will likely go out of business in the face of crackdowns on contraband merchandise, said a Thai business executive on Thursday.

Daily businesses at Rong Klua market in Aranyaprathet district, some 230 km east of Bangkok and across from Poi Pet township in Cambodia, have turned from hectic to quiet as Thailand's Department of Special Investigation and police have been cracking down on pirated, copyright-infringing goods which would have been otherwise abundantly put on sale by Cambodian vendors.

Pramual Khiewkham, secretary general of the Sakaeo Chamber of Commerce, said daily trading at Rong Klua market will likely grind to a halt due to the ongoing crackdowns by the Thai authorities while most Cambodian vendors have closed down their shops and stalls since last week.

"The Cambodians will likely go out of business at Rong Klua market where they can no longer put their merchandise on sale. There's no way of running the market the way it used to be in the face of the crackdowns," said the executive of the chamber of commerce in the eastern Thai province of Sakaeo.

Most visitors to Rong Klua market, including Thai shoppers from Bangkok, would obviously look for low-priced, second-hand and pirated goods, many of which were smuggled across the border from Cambodia.

Large quantities of contraband items were abundantly put on sale ranging from shoes, clothes, hats, sportswear and automobile accessories to camping and fishing gear.

"Due to the unprecedented crackdown, the market has virtually become a deserted town," he commented.

One Cambodian trader was quoted as saying that his fellow vendors would indefinitely keep their shops closed during the crackdown period which was said to last a few-months time.

He declined to tell whether the Cambodian vendors might possibly reopen their shops without any more pirated goods for sale at Rong Klua market.

Last week, a brief riot occurred at the border market as hundreds of Cambodian vendors blatantly expressed frustrations at the Thai crackdown mission. Some threw stones and other hard objects at the officials and others damaged government property.

Two young Cambodian males were arrested and sentenced to three months in jail on charges of attacking the Thai officials and vandalizing a van of the DSI border unit.

Bun Sokvibol, the Cambodian consul general attached to Aranyaprathet, made inquiry with the Thai police about the incident and planned to submit a report to Cambodian leader Hun Sen in Phnom Penh.