Plans in place to open Thai store in Cebu City

The sister-company of the Krua Thai Inc., the Thai-Phil Inter-trade Corporation is going to open a two-story mini-department store that will offer Thai products.

According to Poompong "Jim" Hiranpruck, who decided to be active in the restaurant and trading business of his family in the Philippines, they are still looking for a good site for the location of the Thai store within Cebu City.

He said, it will offer ready-to-wear (RTW) products, food products or delicacies, home accessories, and furniture, among others.

Already, the company has started to trade some food and delicacies including home accessories and furniture from Thailand, being displayed at the different Krua Thai restaurants in Cebu.

Hiranpuck said the company will be investing over a million pesos to build the first Thai store in Cebu. He said there are already other stores that offer Japanese products, or Koreans, this is the time that Thai products and foods will be well promoted in the Philippines, especially in Cebu, where tourism is promising.

"There is a big market in Cebu for Thai products, the reason why we decided to build a stand-alone store for this purpose," Hiranpruck said in an interview.

He said it's not only the tourists that are expected to be the market for the Thai Store, but also the people from the local community.

The opening of this facility is expected to add another tourism advantage to Cebu, as one of the weaknesses identified in Cebu by tourists, is the availability of wide choices of shopping facilities.

He said temporarily gave up his show business career in Thailand in order to pursue a business venture in Cebu, to personally manage the Hai Phong Vietnamese restaurant in Crossroads, and to set up the Thai Store in the next few months.

The company's most successful venture the Krua Thai chain of restaurants in the country, is set to open a Japan outlet in the next few months, as soon as the franchise negotiation will be formalized.

The Japan outlet will be operated by a Japanese franchisee and the franchise deal is currently being clenched, Hiranpruck said.

Hiranpruck said that Japan will be the restaurant's first entry to the international market, if this will be successful, Krua Thai will enter United States and Northern America soon.