The Joint Standing Committee on Commerce, Industry and Banking (JSCCIB) plans to meet Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha to seek more vaccines for factory workers and approval for companies to produce antiviral drug favipiravir to cope with the Covid-19 crisis.
The group is preparing to send a letter to the premier within 1-2 days to arrange an appointment.
Besides a talk on the need to speed up inoculation among workers insured under Section 33 of the Social Security Act, the Federation of Thai Industries (FTI) also wants to discuss with Gen Prayut the favipiravir issue.
"The business sector wants the Government Pharmaceutical Organization to allow companies in Thailand to jointly produce favipiravir because demand for the medicine is higher than the state import and production," said FTI chairman Supant Mongkolsuthree.
FTI is concerned Thailand will face a favipiravir shortage the same way it is encountering vaccine scarcity during the third Covid-19 outbreak which continues with no sign of abating.
The federation expects JSCCIB will be able to meet Gen Prayut as soon as possible.
Late last month, FTI met Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul and Labour Minister Suchart Chomklin to make a request for more vaccines for workers under Section 33.
FTI is also in talks with the Chulabhorn Royal Academy to acquire more Chinese-made Sinopharm vaccines.
It already procured 300,000 doses of vaccines through the academy.
Kriengkrai Thiennukul, vice-chairman of FTI, said Covid-19 infections in factories continue to increase and threaten to affect the manufacturing sector.
"FTI received requests from 1,000 factories demanding around 400,000 doses of vaccines," he said.
Yesterday FTI reported Thailand Industry Sentiment Index (TISI) in July declined to 78.9 from 80.7 in June.
TISI continued to decrease for the fourth consecutive month to the lowest in 14 months since June 2020.
The decline resulted mainly from the outbreak and lockdown measures to contain disease transmission.
The government imposed drastic lockdown measures, including travel restrictions and a night-time curfew, in 13 provinces, including Bangkok, from July 20 to Aug 2.
It decided to extended the lockdown to cover 16 more provinces, bringing the total to 29.
The government will assess the outcome after 14 days and may consider extending the lockdown measures until the end of this month.
The July TISI was based on a survey of 1,386 enterprises, covering 45 industries. Some 61.3% said they were concerned about fuel prices while 50.1% were worried about political conflict.
