Nation Thailand
Finance Chief, Central Bank Chart Thailand's Path to Global Trust
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Thailand's finance chief and central bank governor set out at Bangkok's summit how the kingdom aims to become Asia's trusted economic partner.
Key facts
- Thailand's top economic policymakers used Thursday's Bangkok Business Summit to argue that the kingdom's next competitive advantage will not be cost or geography alone, but trust — its ability to prove to investors and ASEAN neighbours
- On digital infrastructure, he pointed to PromptPay, Thailand's fee-free instant transfer system, which has over 83 million registered accounts and processed as many as 2.5 billion transactions in February 2026 alone, and to the Krung Thai
- Digital payment transactions surged from 21 billion baht in 2021 to 48 billion baht in 2025, he said, while digital financial service use grew nearly 70 per cent to 141 million accounts in five years.
- withdrawals to zero since January 2025, alongside a mule-account crackdown and daily transfer limits that cut losses from authorised push-payment scams from a peak of 8.6 billion baht in the second quarter of 2024 to 1.8 billion baht a ·, charting a roadmap to high-income status; Bangkok hosting the IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings in October, its second time as host since 1991; and Thailand's ASEAN chairmanship in 2028.
Summary
Thailand's top economic policymakers used Thursday's Bangkok Business Summit to argue that the kingdom's next competitive advantage will not be cost or geography alone, but trust — its ability to prove to investors and ASEAN neighbours that it can be relied upon as a stable connector in a fracturing global economy.
Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Ekniti Nitithanprapas explained why that trust is under strain, citing four borderless shifts no single ASEAN country can manage alone.