The government is expanding the "must-see market" initiative to promote community markets and tourism in the 76 provinces plus Bangkok.
The goal is to broaden the initiative to cover 231 markets nationwide by 2018.
Deputy Commerce Minister Suvit Maesincee said the ministry's Internal Trade Department, which launched the initiative, plans to add 77 markets to the scheme in 2017 and a further 77 in 2018.
The must-see market scheme was introduced late last year on the order of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha to promote the link between community markets and tourism and raise the income of local people, community enterprises and small and medium-sized businesses.
The government has earmarked 200,000-300,000 baht to improve each market's landscape and sanitary standards, promote the community's unique identity and launch tourism campaigns for those markets.
The must-see market scheme has been quite successful, with an estimated 200 million baht in circulation in August.
According to Mr Suvit, the Internal Trade Department also plans to develop further and promote the distinctive traits of each market such as cultural market, farm market or walking street.
The department also plans to facilitate the linkage of local community markets to the government's central market for agricultural products and online marketplaces in the future.
"The Commerce Ministry is also working with the Finance Ministry to look for ways to increase farmers' incomes and purchasing power as well as raise farm product prices," Mr Suvit said.
Anan Dokkurab, chairwoman of the water chestnuts processing housewives group from the must-see market at Wat Palelai in Suphan Buri, said the scheme has helped upgrade the quality of the market, raise awareness among tourists and increase choices for consumers.
She said thanks to the government's promotion, the group has secured purchase orders for cooked water chestnuts to the tune of 1 million baht, helping to raise local farmers' income.
According to Mrs Anan, the group is also looking into the possibility of processing water chestnuts into other products such as wine.