FDI Spotlight | Thailand’s Rising Entrepreneurs & the Importance of Rice

Thailand’s Rising Entrepreneurs & the Importance of Rice

Thailand, known as a traditional labour based economy, has a strong tradition of investing in the development of the worker. This tradition is deeply rooted in the value of education, culture and social attitudes which honour hard work and loyalty. This is why the agricultural and manufacturing base is so strong. However, despite their global reputation for exceeding production goals, Vietnam and India has overtaken Thailand as the world’s largest exporters of rice. Thailand’s manufacturing is fighting a losing price based battle.

This initial infrastructure funding permitted a modern interconnected public transport system to run around Khon Kaen starting with the creation of the public transit red line which cross-sections 15km of Khon Kaen city centre.

The ethos behind KKTT is to develop Khon Kaen for the locals, created
by the people of Khon Kaen. After the initial success of the red line, the
budget of Bt4 billion is to be used to build a further four mass transit lines.

“We have discussed among businessman in a variety of fields. I studied
about this for four years.

As mentioned the board members of the KKTT hail from different industries and walks of society, this permits us to have a holistic sustainable view of the needs of all the people and not just beneficiate the already established and successful.

My personal experience comes from the logistics and manufacturing industry. Since Khon Kaen is my home, I couldn’t help but notice the disparity between development in the most popular urbanised areas such as Bangkok, Pattaya and Chiang Mai and my hometown and province, which is coincidently the home to 40 % of Thailand’s workforce. However, due to the lack of employment opportunities many of Khon Kaen’s best and brightest gain employment in other provinces, further exacerbating the need for the development of our home. This realisation sent me on a
four-year education of the ability of transport orientated developments
that can sustainably gentrification areas of previous disadvantage.

To realise the dream of helping the entire population of Khon Kaen improving their quality of lives we need to overcome two major traps that are holding Thailand back: The World Bank has stated that Thailand is expected to become a high-income status income nation by 2025. For this to be achieved Thailand’s GDP per capita needs to more than double from our current $6000 per person per year to over $12500 per person per year; this goal in itself is a considerable summit to reach.

There is a common misconception amongst Thai people that for any
major initiative to start we need to wait for leaders in the public sector to
make the first step. This could be perceived as a potential shortcoming
of the respectful nature of Thai people. With our working group, we
are striving to show members of the community that provided you are
acting within the law that no dream is too big to achieve on your terms.

By addressing these two challenges head on we are accelerating our development program for the benefit of society as a whole. This is how we have realised the first stages of our project (the red line) without the requirement of government to push the project. That is not to say we are doing without government support. It is essential to work in collaboration with all stakeholders to build sustainable development for the benefit of future generations to enjoy. We welcome working with local and national development to continue our Transport Orientated Developments in the Khon Kaen area.

Furthermore, by using the original capital from within Khon Kaen, it has
helped locals to value the works as opposed to it being an international
company, “gifting” – people will not appreciate the developments as
much.

As a result of the five, transport lines when finished will open 1000 acres
for development within the city boundaries. This will create an untold potential for the provision of affordable housing, reliable electricity, safe water supply, job creation and human capital development from elementary school to vocational adult training. This is how the premise of private sector backed transport orientated development can create commercialised sustainable development that is on budget and improving the quality of life for local communities. Furthermore, when we talk about job creation, we do not want just to create entry level jobs that will not permit people to develop and help themselves. This is why, for each of the electric tram lines that are being created, we are importing the technology for the carriages from Europe and then bringing it here to train Thai crews to implement the innovation and technology to make transport infrastructure for the future as well.

One of these expected future projects is the Khon Kaen-Udon Thani train link which will be completed in approximately two years. I am confident that the culmination of these projects will position Khon Kaen as an integral trade centre within the CLMV region.