PM Prayut sees Thailand as ASEAN’s digital hub

[webfact]

PM sees Thailand as ASEAN’s digital hub

 

   

BANGKOK (NNT) - To help promote small businesses and increase product value to generate more national revenue, the Prime Minister has pledged to fulfill requests from startup businesses to streamline government regulations in order to reduce costs of foreign technology imports.

 

Prime Minister Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha has presided over a meeting to discuss guidelines for promoting Thailand as ASEAN’s digital hub, through Thailand Digital Valley and Digital Startup campaigns, aimed at attracting investors and improving human resources with high demand skills, stressing the country’s preparedness to become the region’s hub for advanced digital technologies and innovations.

 

The Prime Minister held talks with startup businesses, who are a key driver for national development. He pledged to support startup businesses and SMEs to become more competitive in both domestic and international markets, and asked them to learn about government policies, including the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) project, and find ways to adapt their business models and improve their performance and standards in order to be accepted in foreign markets.

 

Startups and SMEs are encouraged to group into categories to receive the optimum government support and promotion. The government has received suggestions from startup businesses for solving issues with its procurement processes, promoting fair competition, amending obstructive laws and regulations and implementing digital technologies to help the general public increase their income. The Prime Minister agreed with most of these suggestions, and promised to take them into consideration.

 

"If they can work in groups, as we’ve discussed here, the government can offer support accordingly. The groups can be categorized, such as service businesses, tourism, agriculture, safety, security and automotive. We want them to be categorized, so I can point out whether products and services from one group can be utilized by another without importing foreign technologies. We want to save money. Foreign technologies are expensive and come with other issues. We don’t want that."

 

On digital transformation of government services, Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak yesterday held a high-level executive meeting between the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society and the Digital Government Agency. He stressed that both organizations must create concrete action plans covering three years, initially focusing on mechanisms to promote grassroots economics by providing the government with data from low-incomers, farmers and the general public. This will be analyzed to enable the provision of better assistance. The collection of domestic and international trade partner information, in cooperation with the Ministry of Commerce, will help improve basic services for private businesses, streamline the the issuance of permits and help improve the country’s competitiveness.

 

 

-- © Copyright NNT 2019-10-10

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[Fex Bluse]

15 minutes ago, webfact said:

BANGKOK (NNT) - To help promote small businesses and increase product value to generate more national revenue, the Prime Minister has pledged to fulfill requests from startup businesses to streamline government regulations in order to reduce costs of foreign technology imports.

So, effectively they are saying, we know we -- The Thai Government Elite -- can benefit from technology, so we will work on streamlining bureaucracy.

 

Good luck krub

[Cadbury]

Don't you just love it........all showing the fingers gesture for money!!! .......Even Prayut himself.

Money! money! money! Greed! greed! greed!

He must have really got them fired up and excited. Sadly just more false hope.

[peter14]

He must be MAO for sure... most idiot comment  ever

[HeyHeyHey]

Really?

 

Is that the same country that can't even make a simple TM30 reporting website functional?

 

Is that the same country where they use paper bank books?

 

Is that the same country where you must have cash as proof of funds when entering country? Because credit cards and bank statements are too high tech?

 

Is that the same country that insist on keeping logs of your online activity when using public wifi?

 

I could continue for awhile

[petermik]

The arrogance of this man beggars belief.....

[DLock]

Not this again.

 

Then again, he's only feeding this propaganda to Thais - and most Thai's are limited in knowledge beyond the border, and may even believe this <deleted>.

 

The chance of Thailand being the ASEAN digital hub, is about as much chance as a Thai space program. Zero.

[Matzzon]

4 hours ago, webfact said:

To help promote small businesses and increase product value to generate more national revenue, the Prime Minister has pledged to fulfill requests from startup businesses to streamline government regulations in order to reduce costs of foreign technology imports.

And increase the cost to develop already existing products and at the same time get a much higher maintenance account. Keep up the good work PM!

[tominbkk]

5 hours ago, Cadbury said:

Don't you just love it........all showing the fingers gesture for money!!! .......Even Prayut himself.

Money! money! money! Greed! greed! greed!

He must have really got them fired up and excited. Sadly just more false hope.

Actually if you know Thai modern picture culture it is called 'little heart'.

[tso310]

I'll bet they're getting worried in Singapore. 

[Eligius]

Hub this, hub that. It never ends.

Hub of S.E. Asia. Hub of Asia. Hub of the world. Hub of the universe. Hub of the multiverse ....

These idiots are so deep into self-delusion that even delusion itself feels embarrassed!

[donnacha]

These delusional hub announcements are always, quite rightly, mocked because they deliciously reveal how far the government is from even understanding the nature of the sector in question.

The one sector in which Thailand did have a lead, and it was no thanks at all to any intentional government policy, was in remote working. Remote working has been around for a very long time. Writers and artists have been doing it for centuries. My own working life since before the Millennium has involved moving countries every six months or so and working with some form of computer.

As the Internet opened up the possibility for employees, freelancers, bootstrappers, and entrepreneurs to work from anywhere, it turned out that Thailand had the right combination of comfort and cost to attract these well-paid and often innovative individuals. Chiang Mai, in particular, started to build a reputation as the best place in the world to connect with other remote workers, and it was mainly there that the various types of remote worker started to coalesce under the label "Digital Nomad".

Just to be clear, regardless of the lofty claims of some digital nomads, working on your own stuff while traveling is and has always been a category of tourism. Whether you are writing a novel or dealing with support tickets for a startup in Philadelphia, you are bringing the work with you and are not taking work away from any citizen of the countries in which you travel. On the contrary, you are creating additional employment through the services you use and the products you buy. Economically, your relation to the host country is that you are a long-term tourist.

In the 90's there was a real stigma in the West when you told people you had spent time in Thailand. Before the Internet went mainstream and Internet dating became the preferred way for Thai girls to discreetly connect with Westerners willing to pay for sex, the bar scene was huge and highly visible. If you mentioned Thailand to a random group of people in Europe in the in the 90's, they would instantly think of girly bars and, possibly, laugh about ladyboys. Those old associations are still there, of course, but today they are accompanied by a greater awareness of Thai food and, now, it is widely seen as legitimate for people to go there to spend time working online.

Chiang Mai became a hub for remote workers because it was a relatively small city with reasonable infrastructure and low accommodation costs. The region was set to benefit as this particular category of tourism continued to grow exponentially over the next few decades.

The main benefit to Chiang Mai is the money spent by these tourists on services and accommodation, but it is clear to me that there was also real benefit to locals in terms of attending tech events organized by Westerners, or even just being exposed to the reality of Westerners their own age making a good living via their laptops in cafes all over the city.

Personally, I organized dozens of WordPress meetups in Chiang Mai and, over the years, helped hundreds of Thai to set up online stores or booking sites. I believe that pretty much any Thai with a small amount of inner drive can earn more money online than they could from a "real" job. If someone's intelligence and work ethic would allow them to make a living as, say, a market trader, those same abilities would allow them to make significantly more money selling via Facebook.

I understand why many older expats are annoyed by digital nomads, but would argue that they brought more benefit to the people of Chiang Mai than the Chinese tourists who are now replacing them. Obviously, the Chinese money pouring into property is great for the elites who own the country, but the digital nomad phenomenon offered some level of cultural transfer and example to regular Thais. The Chinese mainly just demonstrate how to not drive a motorbike.

Economically, Thailand is on course to become a low-tech appendage of China, but it had the opportunity to also at least have a reputation as the best place in the world for innovative people to gather, network, and come up with interesting new ideas. Thailand is never going to develop its own Silicon Valley but at least, finally, it would have had a real hub for something meaningful and more impressive than being the #1 destination for sex tourism.

Unfortunately, the new anti-Western sentiment stoked by the junta created an atmosphere in which civil servants are inspired to dig up old laws that make life more difficult for retirees, while young Immigration Officers at airports, who have no understanding that these scruffy-looking kids are making ten times their salary, think they are protecting Thai jobs by giving them a hard time. Each time the government adds another barrier, they take a sledgehammer to the advantage they had.

As word continues to spread that, now, even people with visas are being placed in detention after long flights and deported, enough energy will be sucked out of the Chiang Mai scene to make it a significantly less worthwhile experience. There will still be digital nomads, but nothing like it could have been if the government had any understanding of the opportunity that had fallen into their laps. Over the next decade or so, neighboring countries will grab up this category of tourism and use it to help propel themselves past Thailand.

 

 

Edited October 10, 2019 by donnacha

[dcnx]

38 minutes ago, donnacha said:

Chiang Mai

You forgot to mention pollution. It’s getting worse, not better. It was the most polluted city in the world for many days last year.

Why live in that when you have options?

[BestB]

Digital hub where your internet logs must be recorded and stored for 90 days????????

 

Maybe once it’s becomes a hub , thai will be able to make functional website that not only functions but works on all browsers ????

[nong38]

5 Million Singaporians show you how to do it, sadly Thailand is not in the same league, its only a couple of hours by plane anyone been to have a look? Thought not, face saving again.

[White Christmas13]

4 hours ago, DLock said:

Not this again.

 

Then again, he's only feeding this propaganda to Thais - and most Thai's are limited in knowledge beyond the border, and may even believe this <deleted>.

 

The chance of Thailand being the ASEAN digital hub, is about as much chance as a Thai space program. Zero.

Don't be to hard on him, he already send this in to space

[CLS]

An old guy with no clue of the outside world is speaking.


Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect

[donnacha]

2 hours ago, dcnx said:

You forgot to mention pollution. It’s getting worse, not better.

That's actually the entire reason why I won't be retiring to Chiang Mai, that four-month season is lethal, a lot of retirees and other year-round stayers are abandoning it for that reason.

In that context, "nomadic" long term visitors are a perfect match for Chiang Mai, that should be encouraged, not discouraged.

[yellowboat]

15 hours ago, webfact said:

We want to save money. Foreign technologies are expensive and come with other issues. We don’t want that."

The technology market is the one thing that has abated inflation for years.  Its prices do nothing but go down.   So much is open source now that it costs next to nothing make it yourself and customize.  Software development kits, SDK's, now cost next to nothing.  It is a comment steeped in fact-less, delusional nonsense.    

[yellowboat]

11 hours ago, Matzzon said:

And increase the cost to develop already existing products and at the same time get a much higher maintenance account. Keep up the good work PM!

How is increasing the cost of development good in something that exists already? 

There is some talent in Thailand, but it has yet to be put towards anything other than big talk from a tinpot.  Thais are patient, so they should look at something that rewards that.  Some long haul technology that takes time that is suited to a patient workforce with repetitively low overhead.  cha cha does not seem to know much about the Thai people or technology.      

[BobbyL]

Is the NNT on the government's pay roll?

 

I wonder if Prayut has any idea about how the digital tech industry works seeing he has spent nearly all of his working life as a military boot licker. 

[whimsy]

Is the NNT on the government's payroll?

Sure is. It is part of the Public Relations Department.

[Matzzon]

1 hour ago, yellowboat said:

How is increasing the cost of development good in something that exists already?        

As usual, you can´t spot sarcasm when it stands right in front of your eyes. Good work, yellowboat! Now you´re in league with the ruler. ????

[neeray]

HUB a dub dub.

 

Borrrrring

[wreckingcountry]

Nonsense! But it makes news and some masses believe the junk


Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect

[Srikcir]

18 hours ago, webfact said:

PM sees Thailand as ASEAN’s digital hub

Recall:

Thailand slips a place in digital competitiveness ranking

https://forum.thaivisa.com/topic/1125839-thailand-slips-a-place-in-digital-competitiveness-ranking/

• Thailand dropped one place to 40th as a result of a mixed performance across three digital factors while future readiness (50th), knowledge (43rd) and technology (27th) improved compared to 2018.

From The IMD World Digital Competitiveness Ranking 2019 results

https://www.imd.org/wcc/world-competitiveness-center-rankings/world-digital-competitiveness-rankings-2019/

Not quite a Hub yet.

[johnny49r]

19 hours ago, webfact said:

PM sees Thailand as ASEAN’s digital hub

Well that's a wonderful thing but nobody in Thai government seems interested in educating the people so they can participate.

Another detail - to become a digital hub, power has to be stable and that underscores the same problem: lack of education and poor work-ethic.

[MaxLee]

I'd rather say the Hub of Internet Police 

[Krataiboy]

Big Chief Five Rivers seems to have as many pairs of pink-tinted glasses as his deputy has fancy wristwatches.

[brain150]

TECHNOCRACY !!!

 

The agenda comes from high above ... none of this are his ideas.

It's just implementing the coming ideology.

 

Who ever thinks it's not going to happen or makes fun out of it, think again !!!

The powers that call the shots are way above the Thai [or any other] Government.

All Governments around the world are doing the same thing - more and more control of the people.

It's coming fast - very fast !!!

 

Calling Prayuth an idiot might be true ... but he is just an useful idiot to higher powers !!!