Despite the global recession, which threatens to lower demand for textiles and garments, the Thailand Textile Institute (THTI) foresees foreign buyers shifting their orders from China and Bangladesh to Thailand.

This will be an opportunity for us. We believe our exports next year will still expand even though growth will decline from 10 per cent this year," said executive director Virat Tandaechanurat.

He explained that foreign buyers were reducing their orders from Chinese textile and garment manufacturers, due to delivery problems.

Moreover, the cost in China has stopped being so low, ever since the government cancelled tax incentives for exporters and tightened up labour-welfare laws.

Bangladesh, one of the leading textile-manufacturing countries, is avoided by the United States and Europe, because it does not strictly regulate manufacturers, whose employees are often children.

Apart from product quality and punctual delivery, Thailand also has better credit than the other two countries in terms of benefits from the ASEAN Free-Trade Area, Virat said.

ASEAN this year will record about US$1 billion (Bt35 billion) worth of textile and garment imports, one sector in which demand is growing robustly. Most of the imports are from Taiwan and Japan.

"Our country is located in the centre of the region. Hence, if we improve our products to conform to customer demand, we'll have an obvious advantage in increasing our regional market share," Virat said.

At the beginning of the year, the institute set a target to boost the country's textile and garment exports to $12 billion in 2013, up from $7.6 billion this year. However, Virat admitted the THTI was evaluating the impact of the global economic slowdown, in order to make a new projection next January.

The textile and garment industry employs 1.08 million workers. Virat said the economic recession would not affect employees in this industry, because labour demand remained strong in garment factories.