JEDDAH: Thailand, which has a quota for 13,000 Haj pilgrims, has urged the Kingdom to allow 2,000 more pilgrims to perform this year’s annual pilgrimage.
“If the request is granted, a total of about 15,000 pilgrims will come for the annual pilgrimage,” Thai Consul General Praphat Chantaharn said at the community Eid celebration held here over the weekend.
The function also served as a farewell reception for the consul general who is returning home this weekend after a stay of nearly two years. Chantaharn is retiring from nearly three decades of diplomatic service that took him to India, Spain, Cambodia, China, Pakistan and Portugal before coming to Jeddah in December 2007.
He said the bilateral trade, which currently stands around $10 billion, is steadily expanding with the Kingdom showing increased interest in Thai rice and other food products. Efforts are also being made to narrow the bilateral trade gap, which is in favor of the Kingdom. Thailand’s $3 billion exports to the Kingdom include auto spare parts, air-conditioners and accessories, and textiles, aside from rice and other food products, while it has been importing $7 billion worth of oil and petrochemical products from the Kingdom.
Chantaharn said his country, with a population of 64 million, had 10 million Muslims, most of them in its southern parts. Ten students are currently pursuing graduation studies in Makkah and 25 others in Madinah covering subjects, including Islamic law.
The consul general said 9,000 visas were processed for Saudis last year, 4,500 each from the embassy in Riyadh and the consulate in Jeddah, and the number of business and leisure visitors from the Kingdom continued to rise.
The country’s expatriate community in the Kingdom was 300,000 strong during the boom of the 1980s, but they now total around 20,000 — 15,000 of them in Makkah, Jeddah, Taif and other parts of the western region, and the remaining 5,000 in Riyadh and elsewhere in the Kingdom.
The consulate is running a school for its expatriate children. The school, which focuses on the country’s language and culture, is held every Thursday at the consulate.
“We currently have space for 200 children, although there is demand for 500 of them,” said Chantaharn.
