"For the past 10 years, we tried to produce enough skilled labour for supporting the industrial sector. Now we realise that we are too small to reach our goal," director Narong Varongkriengkrai said.

The institute trains about 1,000 workers a year, a fraction of what the labour market requires.

"It's hard for Thailand to improve human resources," Narong said. "One of the obstacles is that most operators do not support human resource development because they are afraid that their workers will move to other companies or call for higher wages."

As a result, it is easier to develop the country's competitiveness in term of machines and technologies in order to hire fewer workers, he said.

The institute will support its new policy with two projects: one to develop the mould and dye industry and another to make machines.

The institute began a mould and dye project in 2005 to reduce machinery imports.

It found Thailand was able to cut machine imports from Bt27 billion in 2005 to Bt25 billion last year. "However, import value decreased nearly 10 per cent last year because of the economic slowdown, too," Narong added.

The institute targets reducing the Kingdom's machine import value by 2 to 3 per cent a year.

For the second project, the Bank of Thailand has hired the institute to build six machines for transferring banknotes and one for pressing them. The budget is Bt10 million this year.

Chalida Ekvitthayavechnukul

The Nation