Thailand's textile and garment exports continued to grow in the first quarter of this year, increasing by 9 percent to 1.67 billion US dollars, according to the Department of Foreign Trade.
Rachane Potjanasuntorn, the department's direction-general, was quoted by the Thai News Agency as saying Monday that the country's exports of garments were worth 868.3 million US dollars and that of textiles with 803.1 million US dollars during the January-March period.
The United States still became the largest textile and garment export destination worth 523.2 million US dollars, up 12.3 percent the EU and Japan came second and third worth 326.3 million US dollars and 69.4 million US dollars, up 15.1 and 4.8 per cent respectively.
The country's textile imports in the first quarter of this year totaled 697.1 million US dollars, down 2 percent from the same period last year.
Most imports were used as raw materials for local production.
Key import destinations included China, Taiwan, Japan and the United States.
