Oz Officials Finding Thai Cars to Be Fertile Ground

Australian quarantine officers are seeing too many green shoots.

The problem is they are in vehicles being imported from Thailand.

The Bangkok Post reports complaints have been building over the past several months from the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service that imported Thai-built cars are arriving with weeds in the wheel wells, engine compartment, chassis and tires and other rubber parts.

Australia has a strict agriculture-quarantine policy in an effort to keep pests out of the island continent.

“These weeds come with the wind and cling to vehicles awaiting shipment at ports or while they are being transported from assembly plants,” Thai Agriculture Dept. official Thavorn Thammakorn tells the newspaper.

“Sometimes, they come in such large quantities that entire shipments are rejected by Australia. We then have to clean up the cars before they are unloaded.”

Australian officials have given the vehicle-exporting companies and the Thai Automotive Industry Assn. guidelines on how to avoid weeds.

Thailand also plans to set up a new inspection unit to check vehicles before departure.

Some 25% of the 530,000 vehicles shipped from Thailand each year go to Australia.

The AQIS inspects 5% of each vehicle model unloaded from a vessel, but boosts this to 15% if increased seed contamination is detected during the Asian flowering season.

AQIS does not charge for its routine surveillance activity, but if contamination is found and inspection of 100% of a model is required, fees are levied.