Thailand should focus on promoting only selected S-curve industries, expanding financial access for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and improving the technology and science infrastructure to improve the country's competitiveness, say business leaders.
The country should also ensure consistent government policies, improve education and create an agile ecosystem to capitalise on geopolitical risks and opportunities, positioning itself as a manufacturing base for relocation in the global supply chain.
The speakers made their prescriptions on Tuesday at a seminar titled "60 Years of Excellence: Creating great leaders, designing the future", hosted by Thailand Management Association (TMA). The seminar runs from Sept 16-19.
Omar Toulan, professor of strategy and international management at IMD Switzerland, said digital infrastructure, skill-based training and institutional stability, sometimes called "soft infrastructure", underline a country's competitiveness.
The rule of law needs to be streamlined, with stable policies after a change of governments, he said.
Kitipong Urapeepatanapong, chair of the Stock Exchange of Thailand, said the nation needs to speedily reform regulations as such change is too slow in recent decades.
Rules need to be enforced, which is a major challenge as some enforcement in Thailand can take 3-6 years, said Mr Kitipong.
The country also needs to expand financial access for SMEs, as around 67% of Thai SMEs are family businesses that can be encouraged to list on the stock market.
"Universities and large corporations can share their knowledge and equip SMEs with technology," said Mr Kitipong.
For example, he said Thailand can relax some rules for SMEs in targeted sectors such as healthcare, agriculture, electric vehicles (EVs) and hospitality to help them quickly raise funds.
Selective S-curve
Nithi Patarachoke, TMA chairman, said Thailand has two main challenges, with the first limited industry growth. The country has many mature industries and too many new S-curve targets.
"We need to prioritise S-curve industries such as EVs and amend the law to support e-waste, in particular recycling of EV batteries, which can be a big business in Thailand," said Mr Nithi.
"Healthcare, hospitality, green energy and IT also have potential for growth."
The second challenge is low productivity, in particular in agriculture, which employs 30-40% of the country's workforce, but contributes only 10% of GDP, he said.
"We can move to upstream, high value-added areas such as food processing, building brands for export to Southeast Asia, and creating biomass for green energy," said Mr Nithi.
Integrate with Asean
Chartsiri Sophonpanich, president of Bangkok Bank, said with technological change, geopolitical risk and environmental impact from severe weather events, the country needs to expand physical infrastructure beyond Bangkok and connect with Asean.
"The Asean region represents an opportunity for Thailand and many Thai corporations already have expanded," he said.
Digital infrastructure is also important and businesses need to apply technology such as artificial intelligence (AI) to increase productivity and build talent to move forward, said Mr Chartsiri.
Payong Srivanich, chief executive of Krungthai Bank, said data is the foundation for "future-ready" countries, which should be open for access, rather than limited to some groups.
Care Economy
Santitarn Sathirathai, future economy advisor at Thailand Development Research Institute, said to make the country future-ready, it needs to be up to date with major trends such as ageing and AI.
Thailand also needs to know its weaknesses and have the right mindset to "ride the wave of opportunity", he said.
One trend is the care economy, which covers medical, wellness, preventive healthcare, food, and sensors for medical devices.
"There is strong global demand for the care economy and Thailand is an aged society. The country has great doctors, nurses, herbal remedies and healthcare services. We can develop AI-based applications that serve healthcare," said Mr Santitarn.
Risk as opportunity
Mr Kitipong said Thailand can gain an advantage from geopolitical risk, in particular from venture capital from Israel, Russia, China and Vietnam.
"We can be a financial hub and talent pool for foreign investment, opening our doors for foreigners to establish businesses in Thailand," he said.
Mr Nithi said to gain a geopolitical advantage, the country needs to have a strong ecosystem that serves a target sector. For example, Indonesia has a complete supply chain for EV batteries.
Mr Toulan said in terms of the global supply chain, Thailand needs to be agile, acting fast to gain an advantage from geopolitical risk by positioning itself as an attractive outsourcing location apart from China.