Dr. Pinsak Suraswadi, Director General of the Pollution Control Department (PCD) revealed that on 8th June 2023 H.E. Varawut Silpa-archa, Minister of Natural Resources and Environment, assigned Dr. Chayanun Phakdeejit, Deputy Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, to be head of the Thai delegation with other delegates from relevant agencies to attend the Twenty-fourth Meeting of the Sub-Regional Ministerial Steering Committee (5 countries) on Transboundary Haze Pollution (24th MSC) to endorse the results of the Twenty-fouth Meeting of the Technical Working Group under the environmental Ministerial Committee of five-country on Transboundary Haze Pollution (24th TWG) held on 7thJune 2023. Mr. Jatuporn Buruspat, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, assigned Dr. Pinsak Suraswadi, Director General of Pollution Control Department, to be head of Thai delegation to attend the meeting with other relevant agencies. During the two days Meeting in Singapore, Thailand discussed with the delegation from Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, as well as the ASEAN Secretariat, on the summery of the situation and implementation of the prevention and solution of transboundary haze in the lower ASEAN region.
Dr. Pinsak said that the meeting reported on the progress of the establishment of the ASEAN Coordinating Center for Transboundary Haze Pollution Control (ACC THPC) in Indonisia to coordinate the implementation of prevention. and solution transboundary haze problem. Indonesia reported about plan to establish this Center and will ask member countries to sign an agreement then this Center will begin to operates at the end of 2023.
Thailand reported to the meeting on the success of haze problem prevention in the southern region through the past three years which particulate matter (PM2.5) has not been exceed the standard in surveillance period. However, Thailand has prepared to deal with this problems in 2023 by implementing according to the action plan to drive the national agenda “Solving the problem of particulate matter”, Ad hoc plan to solve the pollution problem of particulate matter in 2023. Additionally, Thailand reported on strengthen collaboration among Mekong subregion countries that Prime Minister hosted the trilateral meeting with the leaders of Thailand, Lao PDR and Myanmar to fined the resolution of transboundary haze pollution problems by using the “CLEAR Sky Strategy” proposed by Thailand. Thailand has supported capacity building to manage the problem of open burning for neighbouring countries through training program for Myanmar and Laos on 23-25 May 2023. Thailand requested Singapore to exchange knowledge on regulations to control open burning from business operations in order to control problem more efficiency and Thailand will share this knowledge in Mekong subregion, Mr. Pinsak said.
