The UK is the main destination of Thai silk fabric because it is the more open
market for foreign products, however, Thai silk still hold small share in the UK
market (4% of total imports fabric in 2009). Italy and France have imported very
few Thai silk fabric and final products. They claimed that this is mainly because
Thai silk is very expensive compared with the others (this is also true in the
UK), and Thai silk characteristics are not compatible to industrial processing
in Europe (raw Thai silk is golden or yellowish and the fibre is shorter than the
one usually used in European industry). There are also other reasons such as poor
business relationships with the EU operators, low level of communications
and marketing, poor packaging, etc. which are important for exports as well.
Furthermore, France and Italy are the main silk processors of Europe and have
very high competitiveness inside their market already.