When people talk about Petchakasem, they always think that it leads to the south of Thailand . Who ever

imagined there are not less than 1,000 textile and garment industrial factories located along the way from Bangkok to Nakhorn Pathom, Samut Sakhon and Ratchaburi. Those are small, medium and big factories which have been in a high competitiveness with Thai entrepreneurs and foreign entrepreneurs on price, quality and service. These factors urge the entrepreneurs to realize the severe effect which will definitely occur if they let the poor situation go on. So, the concept of enterprise network development (cluster) was born to stimulate competitive capacity which was the core policy of Ministry of Industry focusing on clustering network, both in the vertical and the horizon. The vertical cluster includes the beginning industry, i.e, fabric, to the finishing industry, i.e, clothings. The horizon cluster includes service business, like logistic, IT, in-house enterprise, association, financial institute, educational institute and related government authority

THTI, which is an organization under the Ministry of Industry, has realized its responsibility in textile and garment industry development, including operating in accordance with the policy of the Ministry of Industry, so THTI determined the strategy to link up textile and garment industry with fashion. In 2004- 2005, the institute started “The study of connecting development among the entrepreneurs in the cluster of textile and garment industry to enhance the investment” project, it was funded by the Office of the Board of Investment (BOI). After studying the primary information, THTI was supposed to get the budget from the Department of Industrial Promotion, the Ministry of Industry, to run the project of “The Development of Enterprise Alliance (cluster) of Production and Service Division” for enhancing the competitive capacity; the project was completed in early 2006. To initiate the Enterprise Alliance Development Project, THTI collected entrepreneurs interested in being a cluster member to begin their relationship and have their behavior melt at Khao Yai for 2 days and 1 night. After the attendance of members, some of them have kept contacting continually. Thus, THTI went on a next step that was to take members visit textile and garment cluster in Taiwan . It was surprising to visitors because they were really impressed with Taiwan government and entrepreneurs in strongly developing cluster and supply chain in such a small country to be more competitive. Both cluster and supply chain were helpful for each other and have been improved consistently, this was an interesting example to Thai entrepreneurs and members. The institute, after coming back to Thailand , holds a seminar to share knowledge and experience from Taiwan to members missing the trip and other interested listeners. From this position, THTI did not hesitate to move forward: we hold another 13 related seminars for members could apply knowledge to their business. To achieve the goal of the project after gaining knowledge, all members did some practices. The result of the Entertprise Alliance (cluster) Development Project in production and service sector to enhance the competitive capacity in Bangkok (like Bang Khun Thien, Bang Bon, Pha Sri Charoen, Bang Khae and Nong Khaem), Nakhorn Pathom and Samut Sakhorn was satisfactory. At present, the project has 56 members and was our past activities:

After finishing the project, THTI was proud and glad that the entrepreneurs in textile and garment industry on Pectchakasem road gained knowledge and understood the cluster; moreover, they formed a group to create new products under “Cluster” brand. The members thought that being the part of the cluster was useful for them because they understood more about the cluster, got more friends and business alliance: they could borrow a machine from the group in case their machines were not sufficient or hire members in the group to manufacture products in case they could not finish it in time. They also gained more information and occupational knowledge (business), got benefit from co-purchasing and selling like cost reduction and acquired more knowledge, experience and new concept of work. Moreover, they had more clients from the group, got more suppliers and worked as a team. Normally, there were problems and obstacles in teamwork for everyone was different in opinion and demand, so it was difficult for them to work together. Each member did not have enough time in doing activities in the project because collecting in group needed time, but when everyone gathered together, the time was up. So, the time for reporting information of members was not enough, we still needed more time to make sure for revealing the information. The members also needed the continual support from THTI and government to enlarge its group.

In the year of 2007 and so on, THTI has been intending to carry out the cluster in textile and garment industry because we would like to see the strength and sustainability in Thai textile and garment industry.