On 4 October 2023, Mrs.Ureerat Chareontoh, Director-General of Thailand International Cooperation Agency (TICA), held talks with Shri Chanchal Kumar, Secretary, Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), about possible development cooperation between Thailand and India’s North Eastern Region on hand-woven silk fabric and products. Also present at the discussion were Shri Harpreet Singh, Joint Secretary of DoNER, and Brigadier Rajiv Kumar Singh, Managing Director of the North Eastern Handicrafts and Handlooms Development Corporation (NEHHDC). The meeting took place at DoNER in New Delhi.

DoNER and NEHHDC expressed interest in the Thai Silk production chain as Thai silk is world-famous. The Indian side is keen to learn from Thailand’s success in order to develop its own handmade silk production and sustainable community-based cultural tourism in the North Eastern Region (NER) which shares some similarities culture and ways of life with Thailand, including sericulture and traditional silk production. Considering that the Indian textile industry is also well developed and the Indian government has provided training scholarships on sericulture and post-cocoon technology to agriculture research officers from the Queen Sirikit Department of Sericulture, the Director-General of TICA suggested that mutual cooperation should be based on exchanges of knowledge and start with a field visit to NER. Moreover, TICA and NEHHDC will consult with respective Thai and Indian agencies concerned in order to make a specific needs assessment of each side for further discussions at a later time. NER comprises eight states, namely Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkhim,