Nation Thailand
Bangkok Panel: Take Growth Beyond the Capital to Save ASEAN Decade
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World Bank, IFC and MUFG leaders told the Bangkok summit that growth must reach beyond the capital if Thailand and ASEAN are to de-risk the decade.
Key facts
- Thailand's next phase of growth will fail unless it reaches far beyond Bangkok, three of the region's most senior development and finance figures warned on Thursday, urging government and industry to push investment, technology and jobs
- Kono addressed Thailand's OECD accession process, which formally began in 2018 when he helped launch the country programme as the organisation's then Deputy Secretary-General, and which entered technical review in 2024.
- Thailand, he said, has genuine advantages — a deep electronics manufacturing base, strong digital infrastructure, recent data centre investment and an established industrial ecosystem — but only 12 per cent of Thai companies currently use
- Some 25 OECD committees are now benchmarking Thailand's frameworks, policies and practices — spanning health, finance, agriculture and science and technology — against existing members' standards, he said, and he encouraged Thai businesses
Summary
Thailand's next phase of growth will fail unless it reaches far beyond Bangkok, three of the region's most senior development and finance figures warned on Thursday, urging government and industry to push investment, technology and jobs into the country's smaller cities and rural areas rather than let gains concentrate in the capital.
That imbalance, they said, is not just a domestic problem: it bears directly on whether Thailand can help ASEAN de-risk a decade in which growth has slowed, public finances are constrained, and artificial intelligence is reaching only a fraction of firms.