SEPT 2, 2004 'Thai chicken for Russian arms' offer BANGKOK - Thailand, with its huge poultry industry stricken by bird flu, wants to pay for Russian weaponry with chickens, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said.
He said he had ordered his ambassador in Moscow to offer Thai chicken for Russian weapons, and that he would consult military chiefs on what arms they wanted.
'Our chicken exports have been hit by bird flu,' he told reporters on Tuesday. 'When we can't sell in our traditional markets, we need to penetrate new markets by bartering. We can't leave all this chicken in Thailand.'
Thailand, the world's fourth-biggest chicken exporter until the industry was ravaged by bird flu early this year, has never exported poultry to Russia.
But with the European Union and Japan, its biggest customers, barring imports of Thai fresh and frozen chicken, it has been offering incentives like cheap credit to Asian countries willing to buy Thai poultry.
Mr Thaksin gave no hint on whether warplanes were on his Moscow shopping list, but Russia's Vedomosti business daily reported yesterday that Bangkok wanted to buy at least six Sukhoi Su-30s worth US$200 million (S$340 million).
It quoted a source close to Russia's arms trade authority as saying Thailand, which has equipped its air force with American fighters, had sent a defence delegation to Russia recently to Irkut, which has a licence to produce the Su-30.
Another company making Su-30s is state-owned Sukhoi Corporation, Russia's top arms exporter, which has forecast sales for this year at US$1.5 billion and plans to export 40 fighters. -- Reuters
