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Comment on “Thailand's Policy Challenges”
Asian Economic Policy Review ( IF 3.000 ) Pub Date : 2020-01-05 , DOI: 10.1111/aepr.12298
Akio Egawa 1
Affiliation  

Thailand will no longer be able to sustain its economic growth which is largely based on merely maintaining low value‐added and cost‐oriented export industries. There is a need for Thailand to change its economic and social systems to upgrade its industrial structure into a technology‐intensive and knowledge‐based system to develop economic competitiveness. Nikomborirak (2020) identifies the problems that are hampering Thailand's competitiveness development by carefully overviewing past policy efforts. Similar to Japan's “Economic Revitalisation Strategy” unveiled by the Abe Cabinet in June 2013, the three main policy objectives that can propel Thailand toward global competitiveness and improve its international standing are: promoting new industries; removing obstacles hampering competitiveness development through regulatory reforms; and expanding overseas markets through free‐trade agreements. Nikomborirak focuses on these three policy measures and assesses both positively and negatively the policy efforts made by the Prayuth government since 2014. Through her discussion, Nikomborirak concludes that although fiscal reforms have progressed theoretically, but regulatory reforms have not advanced pushing the Thai economy's competitiveness to a low level for more than a decade.

Nikomborirak contributes toward future research on the Thai economy with the following assertions. First, by comparing the rice‐pledging scheme and cash handouts for farmers through welfare cards she explains that not all populist policies should be criticized. Second, even though the pursuit of too many populist policies would limit public investment projects which are necessary for improving economic efficiency, the Thai people have become addicted to expansionary fiscal policies after the global financial crisis in 2008. The Prayuth government announced fiscal rules and discipline in 2018, but Nikomborirak argues that such stringent rules may not be applicable in practice because the leadership has adopted this stance to make room for easing the restrictions after the 2019 election. In fact, the current coalition government has listed many short‐term schemes to benefit the electorate. Third, observing the policy efforts over these past 5 years (2014–2019), Nikomborirak points out that progress in implementing regulatory reforms and developing infrastructure are generally undertaken only where there is pressure from foreign countries and investors.

Evidently, Nikomborirak's key concern is the Thai economy's recent low international competitiveness. However, her understanding of its causes and her policy recommendations are not consistent. In her discussion, Nikomborirak introduces the concept of the middle‐income trap and states that the lack of technological development has led to low competitiveness. She also argues that low productivity growth is attributable to the stagnant reallocation of labor from the agricultural sector into the high‐productivity manufacturing sector. Such precise analysis would lead a researcher to propose a policy recommendation that more technology advancements must be made in the manufacturing sector, and barriers to labor reallocation must be eliminated. However, Nikomborirak blames the government's competition‐distorting regulations in the services industry for the low competitiveness, and discusses the negative influence of harmful populist policies in terms of efficient use of the budget. The relationship between each item discussed above must be mentioned more clearly, especially relationing to the policy responses needed for promoting advanced technology in the manufacturing sector.

Nikomborirak emphasizes the importance of developing the service sector. However, heavy priorities in the service sector at this stage of development may lead to a loss of the major driving forces that are keys to economic growth. Considering the fact that labor productivity in the manufacturing sector tends to be much higher than in the service sector in countries with a per capita gross domestic product (GDP) of US$7000, it is difficult to comment if Thailand should determine its present and future economic growth through the service sector instead of the manufacturing sector. In fact, in 2016 the Thai government launched the “Thailand 4.0 initiative” to develop newly emerging but growing industries in both the manufacturing and service sectors. Additional and more persuasive explanation to confute the above assertions should have been made to justify and accord greater priority to regulatory reforms in the existing service sector rather than other economic reform measures.

Nikomborirak argues that labor reallocation has reached a limit because of a low export performance due to the erosion of competitiveness. On the other hand, the OECD (2018; pp. 95–96) points out that the causes of stagnant labor reallocation in Thailand during the early 2010s is partly due to the populist policies which prevented farmers from leaving their farmlands. This pessimistic outlook on labor reallocation will continue unless the government abandons its wasteful populist policies and focuses on providing skill development programs for people in the rural areas and establishing large local cities to agglomerate a sufficient number of industries to absorb the local workforce, as recommended by the OECD (2018).

Thus, Nikomborirak effectively argues about individual policy challenges for the Thai government with precise direction and information. However, her explanation for the consistency of the causes for low economic competitiveness and policy analysis and recommendations should have been more detailed to make the conclusion more persuasive.



中文翻译:

评论“泰国的政策挑战”

泰国将不再能够继续以仅维持低附加值和成本导向的出口产业为基础的经济增长。泰国需要改变其经济和社会体系,以将其产业结构升级为技术密集型和知识型体系,以发展经济竞争力。尼康布里亚拉(2020)通过仔细回顾过去的政策努力来找出阻碍泰国竞争力发展的问题。与安倍内阁于2013年6月公布的日本“经济振兴战略”相似,可以推动泰国提高全球竞争力并提高其国际地位的三大政策目标是:促进新兴产业;以及 通过监管改革消除阻碍竞争力发展的障碍;通过自由贸易协定扩大海外市场。Nikomborirak着眼于这三项政策措施,并从正面和负面地评估了自2014年以来巴雷特政府的政策努力。通过讨论,Nikomborirak得出结论,尽管财政改革在理论上取得了进展,

Nikomborirak通过以下主张为泰国经济的未来研究做出了贡献。首先,通过比较大米计划和通过福利卡为农民提供的现金援助,她解释说并非所有民粹主义政策都应受到批评。其次,尽管推行过多的民粹主义政策会限制提高经济效率所必需的公共投资项目,但泰国人民已对2008年全球金融危机后的扩张性财政政策上瘾。在2018年,但尼康博里拉克(Nikomborirak)认为,这样严格的规定可能在实践中不适用,因为领导层已经采取了这一立场,以便为2019年大选后的限制放松空间。事实上,当前的联合政府列出了许多使选民受益的短期计划。第三,尼康布里亚拉克观察了过去五年(2014-2019年)的政策努力,指出,只有在外国和投资者施加压力的情况下,才可以在实施监管改革和发展基础设施方面取得进展。

显然,尼康布里亚拉克最关心的是泰国经济最近的国际竞争力低下。但是,她对原因的理解和政策建议并不一致。Nikomborirak在讨论中介绍了中等收入陷阱的概念,并指出技术发展的不足导致竞争力低下。她还认为,生产率的低增长归因于劳动力从农业部门到高生产率制造业的停滞不前。这种精确的分析将导致研究人员提出一项政策建议,即必须在制造业中取得更多的技术进步,并且必须消除劳动力重新分配的障碍。但是,尼康布里亚拉(Nikomborirak)指责政府 服务业中扭曲竞争的法规以降低竞争力,并从有效利用预算的角度讨论有害的民粹主义政策的负面影响。必须更清楚地提及上面讨论的每个项目之间的关系,尤其是与在制造业中促进先进技术所需的政策响应的关系。

Nikomborirak强调发展服务业的重要性。但是,在此发展阶段,服务部门的重中之重可能会导致失去对经济增长至关重要的主要驱动力。考虑到人均国内生产总值(GDP)为7000美元的国家中制造业的劳动生产率往往比服务业高得多,因此很难评论泰国是否应该确定其当前和未来的经济状况。服务业而非制造业的增长。实际上,2016年泰国政府启动了“泰国4.0计划”,以发展制造业和服务业中新兴但正在增长的产业。

Nikomborirak认为,由于竞争力下降,出口表现不佳,劳动力再分配已达到极限。另一方面,经合组织(2018年;第95-96页)指出,2010年代初泰国劳动力再分配停滞的原因部分是由于民粹主义政策阻止了农民离开农田。除非政府放弃其浪费的民粹主义政策,并专注于为农村地区的人们提供技能开发计划,并建立大型的本地城市以聚集足够多的产业以吸收当地劳动力,否则这种对劳动力分配的悲观展望将继续下去。经合组织(2018年)。

因此,尼康博里拉克(Nikomborirak)通过准确的方向和信息有效地论证了泰国政府面临的个人政策挑战。但是,她对经济竞争力低下原因的一致性以及政策分析和建议的解释应该更详细,以使结论更具说服力。

更新日期:2020-01-05
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