タイの今後の産業発展・人材育成と政府の役割の限定性

抄録

Thailand should shift its industrial structure from a labour-intensive, manufacturing-led one into a technology-led and knowledge-based one.　The Thai economy can then concentrate on technology transfer from other countries through promoting relevant inward foreign direct investments, but should also foster the potential to develop the capacities of innovation and invention.　However, in practice, this may be challenging from the perspective of developmental economics due to the characteristics of technology itself.　Even though the government attempts to advance domestic innovation, the imperative is to focus on advancing technological development that can be applied to various industries and to teach the general public technologies that are necessary for their daily life and work.　However, companies tend to keep the technology that generates large profits a secret, and the government finds it difficult to identify or further foster this without the cooperation of the companies concerned.　This not only creates a limitation on increasing the country’s overall productivity, but also constrains human capital development.　Although the government cannot develop cutting-edge technologies, it can build the capacities of people to easily utilise the products and services with the cutting-edge technologies by improving education over the long term.

The government should make further efforts in this direction.　As to technological development, public research and development expenditures are still much lower in Thailand than in other developing countries.　Acquiring advanced know-how through technology transfer from other companies may be effective for the time being, but the ability to innovate technologies suitable for the domestic market will become inevitable.　Therefore, the government should focus on enhancing human capital with skills that can sustain a technology-led and knowledge-based economy.　Yet, educational reform has not been guided by the National Economic and Social Development Plan.　Moreover, it will not be possible to provide vocational training to all the low-skilled citizens within a short period of time.　In any case, the key issue is what strategies the Thai government should adopt to tackle the complex problem of human capital development, and this should be recognised as the key for Thailand’s economic development in the longer run.

JEL Classification: H52, I25, L50, O38