Thai economy could lag behind Vietnam's, warns DPM
BANGKOK, Dec 22 (TNA) - Deputy Prime Minister Pinij Jarusombat yesterday issued a wake-up call to Thai industrialists, warning that unless they overhauled their practices, the Thai economy could fall behind that of Vietnam within the next five years.

Speaking at a seminar held for industrialists at Bangkok's Miracle Grand Hotel, the deputy prime minister said that industrial clusters would help boost Thailand's competitive edge, with each cluster cutting costs by sharing production and sharing distribution.

But he warned that the development of Thai industry meant not only boosting production efficiency and transportation and ensuring that products reached customers' hands in time, but also requiring a focus on education.

Pointing to Vietnam, he said that Vietnam had made huge strides in producing skilled personnel.

Unless Thai industrialists made similar developments, the Vietnamese economy could overtake the Thai economy within the next five years, leaving Thailand unable to compete.

Mr. Wachara Phanachet, the Vice Minister of Industry, said that the Ministry of Industry was ready to support private sector industrial clusters in terms technology and marketing.

The ministry would also ensure that the Small and Medium Enterprise Development Bank of Thailand (SME Bank) provided adequate financial backing. (TNA)--E006


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That wouldn't surprise me at all

Yay for Vietnam. Keep up the good work Thailand!

Keep the lagging Thailand and Vietnam will rise hahaha !!!

Good to know.We are a country capable of that sort of thing.

Thailand's attempt will be futile. muahahahahha

Who cares. I just want my people to have enough to eat and afford housing and medicine and to defend our land. Do you really care if we beat Thailand or not in economy?

Oh and I hope the Vietnamese don't get too cocky from this news and we continue to try to work hard like we don't have anything at all and are starting from the bottom rather than resting on our laurels.

Neither would it me..

thailand has less people, around 20 millions or so; yet its economy is currently twice of ours (if i'm not mistaken). this means our economy must be considerably larger than that of thailand in order for vietnamese to have the same standard of living as thai.

we've really got a lot of works to do, folks.

Good news for Vietnam eh? Hopefully Vietnam will turn into another power in Asia one day, and the world will not have to look at us with one eye.

I don't want to the world to look at us at all rather than one eye. I would rather Vietnam have enough to take care of it's people and promote isolationism and close our borders so no one can bother us ever again.

I just think Vietnam should watch over its Tourism sector carefully and should make getting a citizenship hard.

Erh... you're talking about isolating Vietnam from the rest of the world, just like Japan in the 1600s, Vietnam in the 1980s, did you see notice any increase in education, technology in those eras at all?

Taking care of its people doesn't require closing borders and lock yourself in. Expanding the people's choices, options, and their ways to discover new ideas from the world is taking good care of people. People can only get more ignorant if their government keep locking themselves in one place and feed them.

Yes, having an open door policy can bring bad or worst events into the country, but only if the government has a plan to block them out before it gets out of hand.

Islam is not an official religion (In Vietnam that is) and I don't think there is even a 1% population of muslims in Vietnam which is why it is unlawful to practice it in Vietnam which is why I believe terrorists can't and don't bother coming to Vietnam at all.

I personally just want Vietnam to be left alone rather than getting involved with the chaotic politics of the world.

He meant strong border protection

I can't trust the world after we "opened" ourselves up and let the French, followed by the Americans lay destruction to our country.

In the end we Vietnamese must only trust ourselves and thus should not get involved in the world because they want to take advantage of us like they did in the past.

Uhm the reason why we got colonized by the French is because we didn't open the country and generally poor diplomat.

No the French just wanted to be assholes cause they had Colonialism mentality.

I read the French came because the Southern lords wanted their help in defeating the Northern lords and afterwards he decided to kill the French missionaries after they had helped him.

So the French got pissed and took over our country as a result.

So basically if we didn't open up and invite foreigners to help us settle civil wars none of this would have happened.

Nah, that would be a boring country. I think it'd be up to us to grab of what is ours. If china wants the entire East Sea (Bien Dong, aka S. China Sea), we don't just look at it and do nothing while we close our borders and not getting involved. I say we fight for it.



Remember, it was because of our isolation in the 1800s that led to the colonization of our country. Japan opened its doors, Thailand opened its doors, and Westerners didn't even bother attacking them. Vietnam closed its doors, and Westerners used it as a reason to attack us, and our weapons weren't even ready to fight back then.

But erh... we're getting off topic.

Anyways, Thailand is worried that it will lag behind us, then they'll push their industries and begin to compete with us more harsher than ever before. But I think we shouldn't compepte with them now, we just let our economy increase at a normal rate as it is right now. The more we compete with Thailand, the more harder Thailand will try to fight us.

Two tigers fighting at once will result in an injured tiger. Why don't we let Thailand compete and push their economy hard, then once they're exhausted, we can jump in and get all the benefits. Right?

Errh... I think you should read more on about Tay Son, and Nguyen Dynasty.

The French didn't get pissed mister. The age of colonalism was in its height and thus French's tempting on Vietnam was high. "Opening here" is obviously to allow to adopt Western ideas and copes with reformations which the Viet emperors were lacked of. They were being hot-headed. The other one is just because the Vietnamese diplomats didn't quite negotiate well anough with the French.

If Vietnam has opened up and traded with European countries, and continued reformations in legal departments and goverment, Vietnam wouldn't suffer that bad.

I don't think Thailand is worried at all. They just made this "announcement" to try and raise nationalism among it's people so they can work harder boost their economy which has been going down since the Asian financial crisis.

Making announcement like these work a lot better than forced labour to get people to work hard for the government.

I think we need to adopt the same attitute and tell our Vietnamese comrades to work hard or else we'll all be slaves for the Americans when they invade soon.

Trust me, Vietnam will eventually catch up to Thailand.. Most of the economic success had been due to Sino-Thai's.

What? The Americans are going to invade Vietnam? Huh?

The only country we need to worry is china, not the U.S. And if America were to invade Vietnam with their economy, then I am willing to open the gates to let their economy invade Vietnam, rather than taiwan or china's.

No my friend, I was using that as an example to make our people work harder by invoking their nationalist feelings.

Nationalism can be a very dangerous weapon if used properly.

Isolationism has been keeping us poor since the beginning of time. It's not that we need to get away from everyone else, but it's rather we need to learn how to play with everyone else. Vietnam has never been a good diplomatic nation. If only we opened the door to the French and trade with them weapons and technologies we would have been much better off than we are now. We didn't do that, instead we kept them out for so long that they just had to knock their way in.

You wanna know why our country is under developed and our progresses are few?

It's because we've been at war constantly throughout our entire history. War after war after war. When can we just take a breather and sit down and develop our country?

We definetly have the brains with our high rankings in mathematics,physics and robotics contests.

I say we close our country and lets not bother with the world and just sit down and make our own Vietnamese innovations.

We come from a land far far away, a land that hasn't been touched by west ever since the end of the Vietnam war. Lets keep our country distinctly Vietnamese and not let foreigners come in to destroy our culture. Lets keep Vietnam a magical land far far away.

But Vietnam is not a magical land far far away.

Take economy, and political science

Seriously why open up our country? Foreigners aren't gonna just come in and want to magically help our country. They need something to gain out of it.

Fact is our children will end up doing child labour and crap. I say we close our country off period, and develop our fertile land to give us an abundance of food and we come up with our own inventions for our own use.

Look at the U.S and how they got powerful due to their isolationism policy until the WW2.

LOL one of the hilarious post ever. Let's get back to feudalism

US is isolated as in "military dominance", however its economy is....

No point of discussing really.

Seriously dude, you are wrong.

The U.S. did not get powerful due to their isolationism. Where in the world did you get this idea?

I definately agree, however, VN's efforts the past years concerning observation and development over the quality of personell are outstanding. One big issue that will affect Thailand's economy is production for the US. Even though Bangkok is like an Asian version of Times Square New York and has everything it does, it doesnt mean everyone is buying their Rolexes and such from Thailand. And car production proves to do nothing for Thailand, since buying a car in Thailand costs 3 times that of in the US due to taxation. It's a pretty stable system, but still needs fine tuning.

Sorry, i quoted the wrong one for the ABOVE reply.



I definately agree, however, VN's efforts the past years concerning observation and development over the quality of personell are outstanding. One big issue that will affect Thailand's economy is production for the US. Even though Bangkok is like an Asian version of Times Square New York and has everything it does, it doesnt mean everyone is buying their Rolexes and such from Thailand. And car production proves to do nothing for Thailand, since buying a car in Thailand costs 3 times that of in the US due to taxation. It's a pretty stable system, but still needs fine tuning.

Do think Thailand is worried about Vietnam? Please.....
Have you heard of a thing called a Warning



That is somewhat true, but its not like Thailand is not worried, Thailand is aware of their fellow competitors like Vietnam which could be a future competitor in the future. ALso Thailand's economy is not doing that great currently, there are so many people signing up for the army due to lack of available jobs.

u have too much confidence dogg , Vietnam will be ur country's competitor soon

What about after that 5 years period?What next?A chance to compete with Asia top rated countries?

Thailand's economics have never been better since the economic boom in the late 80s and early 90s Before the Asian Economic Crisis, the baht was 25 to the dollar and then floated to 56 to the dollar. Now it's back down to the mid 30s. not bad imo. The country itself is pretty highly developed especially BKK and is probably second to Malaysia as an economic powerhouse in Mainland SEAsia.



I kind of agree with this cause PM Thaksin controls the Thai media with his TAT party to stir the economy and such, but I think Vietnam is definately a future contender in Asian economiics, it just needs time to develop its infrastructure.