Satun province has failed to attract bidders for the eighth consecutive time to collect edible bird's nests on its islands.
Governor Patarapon Ratanapichetchai said yesterday that the southern province will open a ninth round of bidding soon to find new concessionaires.
The latest auction was conducted on Dec 13 last year with a median price of 41.33 million baht for a five-year concession to collect bird's nests but attracted no bidders.
Mr Patarapon said the reason could be a lack of orders for bird's nests from foreign buyers. In fact, the season to collect solidified saliva, which is supposedly of high nutritional value and has exquisite flavour, had ended. Even if an investor wins the bid, they would have to wait for another four to five months to collect new bird's nests.
The governor said the province has to spend at least 20,000 baht a month hiring guards to prevent thieves and encroachers.
An industry source said concessionaires in Krabi, Phangnga, Prachuap Khiri Khan, Chumphon, Phatthalung, Trang and Surat Thani had submitted a petition to the government seeking help after prices decreased due to a reduction in demand for bird's nests from foreign buyers, particularly China.
According to the source, the contraction happened after Chinese buyers found fake red bird's nests, which are expensive and in high demand, had been shipped from Indonesia.
Bird's nest sellers from Indonesia allegedly dyed low-quality edible nests and made them look like red bird's nests and sent them to China, resulting in buyers from that country cutting imports from the region, including Thailand, causing prices to plunge.
Damages run into the tens of billions of baht, said the source.
