Government, industries taken to task on wide range of issues
A major three-day conference in Bangkok has made wide-ranging proposals for strategies to improve Thailand's export competitiveness.
The Thailand Competitiveness Conference 2010 was jointly organised by the Board of Trade of Thailand, the Thailand Management Association and the Thai Institute of Directors.
A highlight of yesterday's final day was a series of workshops covering six key areas that are expected to have a vital influence on the country's future export competitiveness. They were food, a green economy, research and development, Thailand's development as a world-class logistics centre for the Great mekong Subregion, tourism and high-value-added services, and ethics and morality.
World food leader
This workshop proposed that there were five fundamental issues upon which the country should focus in order to become the world's leading sustainable supplier of food by 2016. These were creating a good image for Thai food in world markets, gaining access to strong potential markets, developing higher quality for Thai food, sustaining supplies and developing the food industry's human resources.
The workshop proposed four strategies to drive Thailand to become the world's leading food supplier: safety, security, sustainability and standardisation of the country's food products.
Safety involves making Thai food safe throughout the supply chain. Security means considering the availability of food in the light of both supply and demand and taking into account both local and global markets. Sustainability refers to the need to make the food industry sustainable throughout the supply chain and exercising social responsibility, and standardisation means achieving global standards for Thai food products.
Green Economy
This workshop decided that for Thailand to achieve eco-efficiency for sustainable competitiveness, the country's export production should go beyond simple environmental friendliness and Thailand must transform into a green economy.
To achieve this, the workshop suggested several strategic plans:
collaboration among government, private and non-governmental organisations (NGOs); building public awareness; driving co-projects through a peer-driven model; creating a culture that enables green innovation; and promoting and encouraging the agricultural industry.
The plans set out to help Thailand to reduce the ratio of carbon-dioxide emissions per gross domestic product by 50 per cent while increasing the use of alternative energy to 20 per cent of total consumption by 2022 - the same goal as that sought by the Energy Ministry.
Research and Development
This workshop put forward five issues for the government to consider in forming policy to promote science, technology and innovation as a means of increasing the country's competitiveness.
The government was urged to take action and pay more attention to public and private collaboration; awareness and mindset change; funding and budgets for research and development; intellectual property management; and implementation of R&D policies and involvement of the prime minister.
The workshop also suggested that the government should set up a science and technology council to oversee all matters related to science, technology and innovation, and urged that science, technology and innovation be given priority in the planning of the National Economic and Social Development Board.
Ethics and Morality
Morality was seen as one of the key issues in the drive for export competitiveness.
This workshop proposed several areas of strategic focus, including collective effort, setting clear rules for collaboration between the government and private sectors, increase partnerships in order to build economies of scale, and turning intangibles into tangible matters.
It said there was a need to build ethics and an environment of morality in four targeted groups: government, the private sector, young people and families and the mass media.
Examples of action plans include the promotion of corporate governance and corporate social responsibility and observing social sanctions as well as the law.