by 
Ten years ago, you would have seen textile and heavy industrial factories lining the seaboard around Bangkok. Today, the country's manufacturing scene has shifted upwards on the production scale.
Competing with other Asian countries — namely, China, Singapore, Malaysia, and Vietnam — for manufacturing contracts and direct foreign investment, Thailand's top three exported products are electronic components and devices, automotive parts, and petrochemical products, says Ajarin Pattanapanchai, senior executive investment advisor at the Thailand Office of the Board of Investment. The country is currently the No. 1 producer in hard disk drives, and it is the largest auto producer in Southeast Asia and the world's second largest producer of pickup trucks.
While rice, rubber, agriculture, and food processing also have good standing on the export list, textiles have not ranked among the top 10 outbound products for the last few years, Pattanapanchai told journalists and site-selection consultants (people who help multinationals assess and select destinations for planned expansion, new market entry, or relocation) during a meeting in Bangkok.
Coming off a tough 2011 when severe flooding dragged down GDP growth from 2010's 7.8 percent to 0.1 percent, the country is poised to reach GDP growth of 5.5 percent to 6.5 percent this year, said Pattanapanchai.
Besides building out the three key segments, the country is looking to develop its alternative energy, software, machinery, and biotech sectors.
Although Thailand is an attractive place to do business, it's not without its challenges, notes Judy Benn, executive director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Thailand. Administrative bureaucracy, outdated customs practices, a government focus on political conciliation between the red shirts and yellow shirts, and a shortage of skilled workers (Thailand has an unemployment rate of 0.7 percent) are some of the main issues.
One of the ways the country is filling the gaps is by further developing its national research and development centers and strengthening R&D ties to universities in Bangkok. The Thailand Science Park, for instance, now has 60 tenants, 300 R&D personnel, and had 640 R&D projects in 2010, with 354 of them being commercialized, said Korkwan Kwanboon, assistant manager in the marketing and cluster promotion division of Thailand's National Science and Technology Development Agency. Construction on two parts of a business incubator building will be completed next year, and by 2016, the organization expects to have 1,500 R&D personnel and 1,500 R&D projects in the works, with 900 of them going commerical, she added.
I will be reporting back from Thailand every day this week. Please also check out our sister site, Velocity, for a story about the challenges and benefits of entering emerging markets. Next week, we'll be taking a closer look at Thailand's flood recovery efforts and how the hard disk drive industry is doing.
For full disclosure, the trip is sponsored by the Thailand Investment Board and is part of an international press tour. All stories, however, reflect independent reporting, writing, and analysis.
I read it twice because I couldn't believe it until now I had a total different view about Thailand , I thought that it was a very poor country and the only income was from the incoming tourists. It is very promising to read reports like that and I hope the manufacturing growth will lead also the people to a better standard of living.
What kind of electronics production is carried out in Thiland – It is parts or assmelby? If it is both, it will be good for Thiland in long term success.
I think it used to be assembly but now they have moved up to even R&D new things.
What comes to me as a surprise is the extremely low unemployment rate in Thailand. It defeats my perception of the country. Shortage of skilled workers in the times when electronic manufacturing is on boom can be a serious threat. An alternate can be allowing skilled immigrants to fill the demand supply gap so that the growth opportunities donot get hampered.
@ nemos
Most people know that tourism is the biggest contributer to Thai economy but it shouldnt be forgotten that Thailand is the world's no.1 exporter of rice. With electronics industry growing fiercely, looks like Thailand is now an increasingly diverse economy with potential provided proper flood destruction prevention measures are adopted.
It is really an awesome journey fro Thailand to become one of the largest exporter of electronics. A country can successfully attrat tourists and at the same time concentrating on high tech manufacturing and R&D is really a great job. If the government can make the policies more simple to attrat more investors, thaliland will achieve major growth in the next five years.
I agree with many of your points and would encourage all the major distributors to make sure they offer these backend services to all SMEs. The legislation could be quite bewildering for many smaller companies and such a disti service could be a real boon.
With many countries passing legislations it could become a norm for the OEM's to take the help of distributors to support in this exercise. This will be more efficient and faster way instead of builiding and training own team to tackle the issues from new regulations. I think services offered by distributors are increasing and the opprtunities to incres the revenue is also on rise. A very big positive news for distributors and better utilisation of their front line staff.
@All, China is doing more than the United States as they have introduced REACH like mandates covering cosmetics. The FDA in the USA cannot touch the cosmetic industry for anything other than false labeling. Our cosmetic industry is self-regulating! I can't stand our laxity when it comes to our environment and health and saftey. At last count China was watching 1701 ingredients in cosmetics. The Port of Shaghai requires material declarations for cosmetics before allowing an import.
Hi, Nemos
As you do, I also associate Thailand mainly with tourism, and good soups. This comes to show how little attention we pay to some places whereas we focus on the big technological/manufacturing hubs, or the ones that generate more news.
The Science Park incubator sounds promising and interesting.
-Susan
Price reduction pleases! I have long been ordering for my son in a cheap essay writing service. I want to afford more in all areas.