Our main "competition" actually is Hawaii.  Singaporean farmers (yes there are some) come up with new strains sometimes, Malaysians are barely on the board.  Just good farmers and a great climate I think.   

Same thing for one particular breed of pet/show fish called the "discus" (symphosydon discus).  Originally native to Brazil, but brought to Thailand for breeding, and now dominated by Thai breeders/exporters (usually all under one roof since they don't take to frequent transport very well).  I don't mind telling you since it's no longer my bread and butter -and since you often like to wonder "where's the f***in money  coming from, evil doings surely!"-, but it's this one single breed of fish that turned an 25,000 Baht a month AUA income into middle X millions in revenue per year and allowed expansion into a half dozen other unrelated busineses.    And sadly, no corruption, exploitation (unless you're talking about the fish perhaps), or mafia type stuff involved whatsoever.

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What a disappointment you are, Heng - I had half expected you to wear a big black hat, eye-patch and a sword.......

Major world producer of rubber and furniture in addition to some of the other things mentioned here. I get worried sometimes, many of the factories I work with have been seriously struggling over the past few years with China just decimating the marketplace.

At the same time I have to admit its our way of doing business here sometimes. I listened to Felix's diatribe on the helmet fiasco last week and oddly enough I have been making helmets in China. I always make the effort to bring work to Thailand when I can and dug up the manufacturer that I am pretty sure Felix was talking about. Visited them this week and they just were not interested in the trouble of certifying their product for the US. So the helmet business stays in China.

If they are not careful Thailand could end up the hub of labor for Chinese, Japanese and Taiwanese companies.