BANGKOK– To assist rubber farmers, the Prime Minister, Gen. Prayut Chan-o-cha, chaired the signing ceremony of an agreement to use rubber in road construction.
Gen. Prayut used the occasion to praise the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives as well as Prince of Songkla University, the Thailand Institute of Scientific and Technological Research, the Rubber Plantation Cooperative Fund and the Engineering Institute of Thailand under Royal Patronage, as they jointly developed a rubber-based road paving method, which also increases the safety of roadways. The achievement is the result of government initiated studies into road accidents and fatalities and has the added benefit of aiding the nation’s rubber growers.
The Ministry of Transport is to also cover concrete barricades with natural rubber. The method is certified by the Institute of Scientific and Technological Research and was tested in South Korea, proving to be effective at reducing the adverse effects of road accidents. The covering process is to take place between 2020 and 2022, encompassing 12,282 kilometers of road, utilizing 1,063,651 rubber trees or about 1 million tons of rubber sap, and accounting for 71 percent of growers’ income or just over 30 billion baht. (NNT)
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