PM Srettha aims to lift Thailand to upper-income status in four-year soar

[webfact]

 

Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin announced ambitious plans to elevate Thailand to an upper-income nation within the next four years.

 

The 61 year old prime minister unveiled the government’s fiscal strategy for 2024, targeting an average economic growth of 5% per annum and a minimum daily wage of 600 baht by 2027.

 

The initial proposal includes a raise of the minimum wage to 400 baht per day and monthly salaries for university graduates to 25,000 baht. This is part of a broader strategy to generate higher tax revenues and encourage further investment.

The government’s plans come amidst a backdrop of economic, social, and political challenges, including the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

 

Thailand has committed to tackling these issues in collaboration with international partners, as pledged at the United Nations. The Thai PM acknowledged the effects of geopolitical conflicts on the global supply chain, noting Thailand’s dependency on a limited range of product categories and export markets.

 

by Alex Morgan

Photo: by Srettha Thavisin, on Facebook

 

Full story: The Thaiger 2023-10-03

 

- Cigna offers a range of visa-compliant plans that meet the minimum requirement of medical treatment, including COVID-19, up to THB 3m. For more information on all expat health insurance plans click here.

 

Get our Daily Newsletter - Click HERE to subscribe

[bamnutsak]

I want what he's smoking.

 

 

[Ben Zioner]

Mr Amateur PM, you ought to know that higher incomes comes only to and efficient and well trained workforce. Whatever  money you steal from the middle classes to redistribute to no hopers via commie schemes will only make things worse.

[lordgrinz]

For a while there I thought he might be an evil genius, but I'm positive now that he's just another village idiot. 

[LudwigK]

All foreigner wanted the CHANGE:  HERE IT COMES????????????????????

[adrin]

according to the comments, the guys here are already desperate, as this would mean that any esan girl would make more than them and they cannot bang a girl for pocket money anymore

[JimboB4]

And he’s slowly learning that the only way to do that is to continue to expand legalized cannabis in Thailand as they’re currently doing a great job of. 

[Modern Coding]

Business owner here.

So, fresh graduates are to be paid a monthly target salary of 25k.

People with no degree would be at a daily wage of 0.04k, which means a monthly wage of 12k on a 30-day monthly basis as per law.

Well, I would be better off waiting for kids to finish their school, then give them a proper training, instead of hiring fresh graduates, to whom proper training is also needed!

[DjSilver]

lol, so the workers who earn 10k baht/months will soon earn around 100k baht/month. Well, Thailand has a lot of reserves, so who onow how long they can do this ????????????

 

Edit: 100k baht/month, would only give them an average salary. I would say at least 200-300k baht/month is needed.

[peter48]

Great to see this party back in power again. Its like early Thaiksin or Tony Blair or Justin Trudeau. You start governing for all people not the rich elites, you reach out to the poor Northern areas too, to the low incomed and forgotten, the struggling groups barely making it through. You give people hope, you open up your country, you improve education and investment and encourage foreign investment too.  As countries improve too you introduce a dynamism; you bring down drug taking, crime and unemployment. The cynics will say blah,blah but no younger fresh new ideas will help Thailand to what it was like before the coups. This was what the Thais voted for. 

[ikke1959]

An upper income of 600THB no paid holidays and a pension of 3000THB. A month?  Good luck

[John Drake]

He's going to turn this place into Argentina.

[Dogmatix]

Srettha is still blurting out superficial nonsense handed to him by Thaksin PR people without being able to answer questions about definition of goals, how to achieve them or assumptions behind projections (oil price Chinese GDP growth etc). He has become a 2 dimensional cardboard cut out to be wheeled around spouting garbage. 

 

A lynch pin of this push to a higher income economy seems to be raising minimum wages. Singapore did this in the 80s to chase out the low value added assembly industries and replaced them with higher value added. But Thailand has nothing to replace them with, only low end Chinese tourism. It refuses to reform and decentralize education to provide knowledge workers for higher value added and Srettha threw education in the bin by appointing a cop with a dubious reputation from a Chinese political family and waffling about tablets (again). All very simplistic stuff that Thaksin believes his PR machine can spin into a success story.

[Michael van Groenigen]

What people seem to forget through this all is that they only wanting to lift the minimum wage so they can impose income tax on those salaries. People are blinded by a raise in salary but what they forget to mention is what is actually really left over from that 600baht after the tax man. Not to mention that if salaries go up this will affect the prices in the supermarkets .... so cost of living up + income tax deductions = people will be left with even less than they earn right now. Don't be blind to think you will be earning more! ... All this to fill treasury chest? 

[tkramer]

35 minutes ago, LudwigK said:

All foreigner wanted the CHANGE:  HERE IT COMES????????????????????

All Thai wanted the money: HERE IT COMES

[TheFishman1]

He talks THE talk, but I don’t think he can walk the walk. TIT

[spidermike007]

Quite a simple minded thing to say. Perhaps he is less intelligent than one would presume. 

 

It is going to take a lot more than wishful thinking to elevate Thailand to upper income status. Outstanding, effective, intelligent policy, great planning, lowering luxury taxes, lowering import taxes overall, making Thailand the dynamic nation that it once was.

 

After the Prayuth  decimation all bets are off. 

[kingstonkid]

3 hours ago, bamnutsak said:

I want what he's smoking.

 

 

How long do you think the fast food and restaurants are going to last paying 25k.  How many companies and banks will be able to pay that much?

 

[Celsius]

Not on my dime you won't.

 

If you want me to be tax compliant I expect nothing less than a PR status in Thailand.

[mfd101]

Optimism is the father of action.

 

Too much optimism is a sign of incompetence.

[Mangkhut]

«Four year plans» I think I can recall a little from history lessons in school where a few other countries also had «4 year plans». If my memory serves me right it wasnt of the most economic succsesfully countries that had such plans….????????

[ThaiFelix]

3 hours ago, Ben Zioner said:

Mr Amateur PM, you ought to know that higher incomes comes only to and efficient and well trained workforce. Whatever  money you steal from the middle classes to redistribute to no hopers via commie schemes will only make things worse.

There is a well trained work force, educated in Thai colleges and universities, the best degrees money can buy bwahahaha!

 

But seriously, put everyone in a higher income bracket and they will only have to pay more for everything and owe more to the banks.  Same same but different.

[ThaiFelix]

2 minutes ago, Mangkhut said:

«Four year plans» I think I can recall a little from history lessons in school where a few other countries also had «4 year plans». If my memory serves me right it wasnt of the most economic succsesfully countries that had such plans….????????

It doesnt have to, it just looks good for headlines.

[Jingthing]

3 hours ago, bamnutsak said:

I want what he's smoking.

 

 

He wants to make it illegal.

[Jingthing]

Not possible to happen that fast.

[off road pat]

1 hour ago, peter48 said:

Great to see this party back in power again. Its like early Thaiksin or Tony Blair or Justin Trudeau. You start governing for all people not the rich elites, you reach out to the poor Northern areas too, to the low incomed and forgotten, the struggling groups barely making it through. You give people hope, you open up your country, you improve education and investment and encourage foreign investment too.  As countries improve too you introduce a dynamism; you bring down drug taking, crime and unemployment. The cynics will say blah,blah but no younger fresh new ideas will help Thailand to what it was like before the coups. This was what the Thais voted for. 

Hm,...Nativity is a wonderful thing.

[sirineou]

The middle income trap is hard to overcome. But kudos for trying .

The trap is that departing the middle income range makes wages too high to compete with low income countries , but does not have yet  sufficient innovation and highly skilled personnel to compete effectively with upper tier economies. 

   So aside from economic policies to raise wages, he also need to institute policies toward education and the "Mi pen rai" cultural attitude. 

    ( Impossible to do in four years)

Both those policies come with their own unforeseen consequences.  

It is really ,Macroeconomics 101 , but I wish him good luck. 

   If he is successful it would not be very good for most of us here, because most of us earn our income outside Thailand and the rising tide will not lift our boat.  

 

[hotchilli]

4 hours ago, webfact said:

and a minimum daily wage of 600 baht by 2027.

Still woefully out of touch.

[scorecard]

But the outrageous gap in income not mentioned.

That's the problem.

[hotchilli]

1 hour ago, LudwigK said:

All foreigner wanted the CHANGE:  HERE IT COMES????????????????????

Foreigners don't get to vote... Blame Thailand for what it has to put up with.