The Thai government is reviving a major promotional campaign for the manufacturing and marketing of indigenous goods, better known as OTOP (One Tambon (county)/One Product), with intent to increase their sales profits and secure export markets worldwide.

Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who presided over the opening ceremony for an OTOP City 2012 trade fair at Muangthong Thani exhibition center here over the weekend, said the government will see to it that the qualities and values of OTOP items, indigenously manufactured as cottage industry throughout Thailand, will be improved and increased so that they will be exported to the world markets, probably beginning in 2015 -- the year in which the ASEAN bloc will become an ASEAN Economic Community. Among partners of the ASEAN community, Brunei, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar are interested in buying Thai OTOP goods, according to the prime minister.

Marking the 10th anniversary of the OTOP industry, the trade fair, scheduled to run through Dec. 23, is participated by an estimated 3,000 local manufacturers, mostly women villagers as well as provincial and rural community members from all regions of the country.

The government has aimed to encourage local villagers nationwide to produce varied indigenous goods with the use of their own talents and wisdom while the authorities tended to provide financial and technical support.

The Department of Community Development, which is primarily in charge of promoting and funding OTOP industry nationwide, will be a leading force behind the efforts to develop the qualities and values of OTOP items so that they will be ranked as five-star products which will be terminally qualified for export, according to the prime minister.

Thailand's cottage industry churns out a wide range of hand- made products such as handicraft items, furniture items, clothes, paintings, kitchen utensils, dolls, fresh and dried fruits, preservable foods, pickled vegetables and spices and souvenirs made from recycled metal scraps and wood.

"The OTOP industry involves some 30,000 indigenous manufacturers nationwide and we believe many more will follow from now. The OTOP industry has made an estimated 70 billion baht (2.3 billion U.S. dollars) in sales profits annually and that sum will probably go up to 100 billion baht (3.3 billion U.S. dollars) by 2015," said the prime minister.

Yingluck remarked that the government would not only push for the export of OTOP items but also expand their domestic markets to all regions in the country. In particular, leading department stores in the capital and the provinces will be recommended to put them on sale, she said.

Thailand's OTOP industry was initiated in 2001 by former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, brother of the lady prime minister, alongside SME (small- and medium-sized enterprise) development projects, which were implemented by government agencies in all provinces throughout the country.

However, until recently, it had been largely left unattended by the authorities following the fall of Thaksin in the 2006 coup.