With an average
growth rate of 8.5% for the past several years, Thailand has been
touted as the next nation to join that exclusive club of the Newly
Industrializing Countries (NIC). Since the 1950s, Thailand has seen
the rapid extension of the industrial and service sectors, and the
relative decline of agriculture. Today, agriculture contributes just
over 15% of the country's GDP, while manufacturing alone contributes
over one-quarter of the GDP. Rice, the main export for hundreds of
years is today exceeded in value terms by textiles, electronics, and
tourism.
Although the economy has diversified significantly, most Thais are
still linked to the agricultural sector. The slow growth in this
sector compared with the industrial sector means that there is now a
wider economic gap between urban and rural folks.
This discrepancy has lead to massive migration of the population
from the countryside to the towns and cities, especially Bangkok.
Social and economic changes has been even more pronounced in urban
Thailand. Here, new activities and culture forms have displaced
tradition.
Meanwhile, as the fastest developing of Asia's "tiger" economies
beyond China, Thailand shouts business opportunities at every turn.
As always in Thailand, however, surface appearances can be
deceptive. Try scratching the veneer of a Bangkok or a Thai Urbanite
and you will find that not far below lies the same elemental strands
of a country dweller. Therefore accessing Thailand's pots of
potential profitability demands caution, stealth, and a rough
understanding of a labyrinthine bureaucracy and internecine web of
national complexities. Above all it requires patience, not just of a
people who cannot be hurried but also of ingrained customs
procedures, which doggedly refuses to budge for the onset of the
21st Century |
Thailand
