THE MARKET STRUCTURE, CONDUCT AND PERFORMANCE OF PLYWOOD IN THAILAND

Abstract

The objectives of this study were to determine the plywood market structure, conduct, and performance of plywood in order to formulate the action plan for plywood marketing in the future. The study was conducted by using questionnaires. The results of the study indicated that market type of plywood was identified to be an oligopoly this mainly due to the concentration ratio of the top four largest plywood producers was ranging 10-100 percent and the products differing in it's face, utilization type, size, thickness and quality. The barriers of the new firms for entering into the business were the high production cost and raw material shortage. The entrepreneurs of plywood production were classified by aged of the mills into namely the old and the new mills. The quality and selling price of the products were produced by the old entrepreneur was higher than the new ones. The marketing margin was quite rather low while the producer's share and pricing efficiency were rather high. This indicated that the performance of the market system was good enough. Moreover, the profit cost ratio of producers was rather high, this indicated that the producers could gain a rather high profit from their business and this will be an effective incentive for the new comers to entering into the business.