A foreigner’s perspective on 2019 – economy

[webfact]

OPINION

A foreigner’s perspective on 2019 – economy

 

©Chanaka

 

In this second of three articles, looking back at 2019 from a foreigner’s perspective, I take a look at how regional and wider economic changes have profound implications for Thailand and how they affected the Kingdom’s economy over the past year.

 

At the time of the Asian financial crisis in 1997, some of my acquaintances, working in finance, industry, economics and journalism, were heard using the epithet “Teflon Thailand”, on account of the Kingdom’s undisputed, but little understood ability to limit the damage caused by domestic and external developments and crises, which could have severely impacted a lesser nation. This phenomenon has continued throughout the 23 years since. Thailand has lived through domestic political upheaval, a military coup, a new constitution, twists and turns of the globalized economy and the passing of a dearly beloved Monarch.

 

Notwithstanding, all appears well. I, however, use the word ‘appears’ advisedly. Looking back over 2019, there have been moments which should be seen as indicators of endemic risk.

 

On the positive side, while the country’s economic growth has slowed, there is a danger that the period of “tiger” economic growth in the region, and Thailand especially, is subconsciously used as a benchmark against which to measure the current and future growth rate. This would be a profound error. This is because the inducements for developed countries to outsource on the massive scale we witnessed during the early years of globalization have moderated, and will eventually cease to exist as developing countries become fully developed and, therefore, more expensive from which to buy the outsourced products and services.

 

Full story: https://www.thaipbsworld.com/a-foreigners-perspective-on-2019-economy/

 

-- © Copyright Thai PBS 2019-12-30

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[saengd]

The author is a reporter and certainly not an economist and has got several aspects of what he's written quite wrong, the article seems to be more about socio-economics than pure economics which is a very different story. He seems to be complaining that he doesn't have the same rights as Thai's in his country and that Thailand should play by the same sets of labour rules that other countries in the West also play by, hmm, personally I'm not sure that's anyone's job to decide other than Thailands! But on the economic aspects he mentions:

 

The US did recently impose tariffs on some Thai imports. But it's more accurate to say that some tarifs that were previously suspended to all emerging nations were reintroduced because Thailand's economy no longer qualified for the exemption scheme, albeit they were imposed a few months earlier than normal.

 

The article goes on to criticise Thailand for deriving 65% of GDP from exports and 15% from tourism, both numbers of course are wildly incorrect since that suggests everything else in the economy amounts to only 20% of GDP, manufacturing, services, domestic consumption, agriculture and so on!

 

He then goes on to criticise Thailand for being so dependent on foreigners and for not becoming more self sufficient. Given that 22 years ago the Thai economy was completely dead and the SET was valued at around 300, since that time Thailand has seen huge swathes of its population lifted out of poverty and into the middle class and Thai businesses have expanded massively, he seems to be looking for a perfect world solution.

 

 

Edited December 29, 2019 by saengd

[RotBenz8888]

1 hour ago, webfact said:

Teflon Thailand”,

One thing's for sure, I'll be having a big LOL when that epithet is passed to the utopians graveyard. 

[Aspaltso]

One thing is for sure. Even though huge swathes of the Thai population have been brought out of poverty since the Asean financial crises of 1997, there are signs some of those people are slipping back into poverty(at least on paper) and the elite our going through this period of economic slowdown un-scathed. Just more of the same; the haves and the have nots.

[saengd]

6 hours ago, Aspaltso said:

One thing is for sure. Even though huge swathes of the Thai population have been brought out of poverty since the Asean financial crises of 1997, there are signs some of those people are slipping back into poverty(at least on paper) and the elite our going through this period of economic slowdown un-scathed. Just more of the same; the haves and the have nots.

and the elite our going through this period of economic slowdown un-scathed

 

Any evidence for that? NPL's don't differentiate between levels of wealth.

[RichardColeman]

12 hours ago, webfact said:

A foreigner’s perspective on 2019 – economy