The study, commissioned by the Thai National Shippers' Council (TNSC) and conducted by the Chulalongkorn University (CU) Faculty of Economics, showed exporters were witnessing lower profit margins.

"Aside from the stronger baht, Thai-owned businesses in the food, textile and garment industries suffered from labour shortages, higher freight rates, lower orders due to the political turmoil, trade barriers and increasing competition in terms of product and service quality," said TNSC chairman Paiboon Ponsuwanna.

Vice chairman Vallop Vitanakorn said the political turmoil had made a grave impact on the service sector and that exports were now the main engine driving the economy.

He said the government should address acute problems the export sector was facing, particularly labour shortages in the food and textile industries. With insufficient labour, exporters cannot expand their capacity.

Meanwhile, the exchange rate should also be stabilised, so that the baht will not be so strong as it hurts export competitiveness.

Paiboon said the TNSC commissioned the study to provide insight into exporters' financial health. While the Commerce Ministry's forecast is broad-based, the Chulalongkorn study goes into details for each industry.

In the preliminary period, five key sectors - electrical appliances and electronics; plastics and packaging; textiles and garments; canned and processed seafood; and processed chicken - were covered, because they contributed 40 per cent of export value.

In the second quarter, the study will be expanded to cover 25 key industries.

"This survey is more specific and will give us an idea exactly how companies in each industry are performing and how they are performing in terms of quality and pricing," Paiboon said.

The study showed export volume in the five sectors showed a 58.1-per-cent year-on-year increase in the first quarter. However, the Price Index showed a 2.23-per-cent decrease on average.

Electrical appliances and electronics saw a 58.5-per-cent year-on-year increase in volume, although the price declined 2.23 per cent.

While the Volume Index in the plastics and packaging industry increased 4.42 per cent year on year, the Price Index increased 27.23 per cent.

The volume of the textile and garment industry rose 1.98 per cent, against a 1.68-per-cent drop in price.

The volume of the canned- and processed-seafood industry rose 4.99 per cent, against a 4.47-per-cent drop in price.

The volume of processed chicken expanded 0.56 per cent, against a 10.9-per-cent drop in price.

For second-quarter results, Thawatchai Jittrapanun, head of the Export Index project at CU's Faculty of Economics, said the political impact on the export sector was slight, as the turmoil was quickly put to an end.

He added that if the situation were prolonged, the impact could have been greater.