Nationality Thai Name Tharit Charungvat | ||
 | ||
Spouse(s) Vithu Charungvat, one child Alma mater The American University, Chulalongkorn University | ||
Education Chulalongkorn University | ||
Tharit Charungvat is a former career diplomat from Thailand with more than 30-years experience in the Thai Foreign Service. After his retirement from the Thai Foreign Service in September 2016, he currently is an occasional adviser to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Thailand.
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Career
Ambassador Tharit Charungvat first joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Thailand in 1980 as an Attaché in the ASEAN Department. After serving as Third and Second Secretary in the Policy and Planning Division of the Ministry, he was posted to the Thai Embassy in Brussels, Belgium from 1990 – 1994 as Second and then First Secretary responsible for Thai-European Community relations. He then returned to Thailand to serve as Counselor in the Department of Information before moving on in 1997 to begin 8 years of close association with China as the Director of Division III of the Department of East Asian Affairs, which oversees Chinese affairs. This was followed by postings in 1999 to the Royal Thai Consulate-General in Kunming, PRC as the Deputy Consul-General, and then to Hong Kong in 2003 as the Consul-General.
He returned to Thailand in 2004 to take up the post of Ambassador-at-Large at the Foreign Ministry, and over the next two years helped to lay a new ground work for the Ministry’s entry into the digital age of information management and connectivity. In 2006, he moved on to serve as the Director-General of the Department of South Asia, Middle East and African Affairs, overseeing Thailand’s bilateral and multilateral relations with more than eighty countries from the African continent though the Middle East to the Indian sub-continent. In 2007 he was appointed as Director-General of the Department of Information and the Official Spokesperson of the Ministry during a sensitive period in Thai-Cambodian relations.
He would hold this post for two and half years until mid-2009 when he returned to familiar territory by being appointed Ambassador of Thailand to the Republic of South Africa and accredited to ten additional countries in the Southern African region, namely Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland Zaire and Zimbabwe. During his time in South Africa, he worked to promote and expand trade, tourism and people to people ties between Thailand and southern Africa. Ambassador Charungvat then moved on at the beginning of 2012 to become Ambassador of Thailand to the Federative Republic of Brazil. Over one and a half years in Brazil, he worked to further enhance trade, business and investment ties between Thailand and Brazil. In late-2013 he was appointed to his next posting as Ambassador of Thailand to the Republic of Turkey, which he held until his retirement in September 2016.
Following his retirement, Ambassador Charungvat now occasionally advises the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Thailand on various issues.
Education and personal life
Ambassador Charungvat earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Relations from Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand, and a Master of Arts degree in International Affairs – Asian Study and International Economic Development from The American University in Washington, D.C., U.S.A. He also completed Thailand’s National Defence College curriculum in 2004.
Ambassador Charungvat is married to Mrs. Vithu Charungvat with one child.