Publication Code: Y92F
by William E. Brummitt and Frank Flatters
Many of the elements of Thailand's remarkable economic transformation in recent years are quite widely known. The principal feature has been a shift from agriculture to industry and manufacturing as the driving force of economic growth. A major hypothesis in this regard is that a significant part of this successful growth of the manufacturing sector has been fuelled by very high levels of foreign and domestic investment, and especially by the extremely rapid growth of exports.
The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of some of the patterns of recent Thai economic growth, and especially the performance of the manufacturing sector and manufactured exports. The main reason for doing so is to provide a context for the various sectoral studies being done in connection with the 1992 TDRI Year End Conference, Thailand's Economic Structure: Towards Balanced Development? TDRI's most recent attempt to examine Thailand's growth in the context of its position in the global economy was a series of studies for the 1989 Year End Conference, Thailand in the International Economic Community, together with a follow up monograph on Thailand's export led growth. These studies were undertaken soon after the beginning of the recent boom period, and were based on data up to the end of 1987 or 1988 at the latest. Currently available data almost doubles the number of years of evidence on the most recent growth experience. The accumulation of this more recent data, together with the benefits of several additional years to reflect on and react to the implications of recent performance make such an update appropriate at this time.
November 1992