Thailand Told to Compete on Trust, Not Cost, in a Fractured Global Economy

 

Two business leaders say Thailand can grow beyond the middle-income trap by selling trust, brands and wellness while building the capacity to execute.

 

Thailand can still grow sustainably in a more fragmented and technology-driven world, but only if it stops trying to win on price and starts competing on trust, differentiation and the ability to deliver, two prominent business leaders said on Thursday (October 8).

 

Speaking at Thailand Economic Outlook 2027: New Horizon Beyond the Trap, hosted by Krungthep Turakij, Jirayut Srupsrisopa, founder of Bitkub Capital Group Holdings, and Piyachart Isarabhakdee, chief executive of Brandi and Companies, offered different diagnoses but reached a shared conclusion.

 

The old playbook of efficiency, scale and subsidy no longer guarantees growth, and Thai business must change its thinking before the window narrows.

 

The session, titled "The Next Chapter of Thai Business", was moderated against the backdrop of a global economy that Jirayut said is forecast to grow by about 3.3 per cent this year, below its long-run average of roughly 3.7 to 3.8 per cent.

 

With China expanding at about 5 per cent, he argued, other economies, Thailand among them, must be growing more slowly to pull the average down.

 

 

A "K-shaped" world

Jirayut framed the outlook as a K-shaped divide. The upper arm is made up of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, 3D printing, blockchain and digital assets, which he said are growing faster than the global average.

 

The lower arm is the "old economy", which he said has stopped growing in real terms. Each, he argued, needs its own strategy.

 

 

 

For old-economy firms, which describe most Thai businesses, he said the global trade rulebook has shifted from efficiency to resilience. Buyers are increasingly choosing partners they can rely on rather than simply the cheapest supplier.

 

"Trust will become the most important asset in doing business in the future," he said.

 

That, he argued, plays to Thailand's strengths. Thailand cannot beat China on cost or quality, but it has no territorial ambitions and is not seen as a threat.

 

He likened the country to a hen: "We are a chicken that lays eggs all the time. Nobody worries about us."

 

As companies and governments spread their risk across more trading partners, Jirayut said, Thailand should position itself as the partner of choice by avoiding the choice between Washington and Beijing, strengthening governance and transparency, and offering political and policy consistency.

 

He also urged closer integration through ASEAN, including the proposed Digital Economy Framework Agreement (DEFA). He added that China, as it shifts towards consumption-led growth, is opening its market.

 

With a middle class he put at 400 million and heading towards 800 million, Chinese consumers want distinctive, high-quality goods.

 

"If you build a good brand, go to China," he said.

 

 

Growth from the top of the K

Jirayut cautioned that Thailand has little prospect of competing in every part of the technology stack.

 

"We are not a digital hub, definitely," he said, adding that the country lacks the materials to be a robotics manufacturer and cannot out-compete London or Hong Kong in finance.

 

He said Thailand's demographics, with about one in five people over 65, are not suited to a race against younger, digitally native populations in Indonesia, the Philippines or Vietnam.

 

 

Instead, he argued, Thailand should lean into what it already does well: wellness, longevity, hospitality and food.

 

"In the water there are fish; in the fields there is rice," he said, citing a Thai proverb.

 

He suggested that an ageing world will want what Thailand sells and that the country could become a "peace of mind" destination for wealthy visitors.

 

He also called for more value to be added at home, rather than exporting raw ingredients to be processed abroad and sold back at higher margins.

 

On the technology side, he said every organisation should adopt AI, which he described as a "platform shift" comparable to the arrival of computers and the internet.

 

Thailand, he argued, is unlikely to compete in the costly lower layers of the AI stack, such as chips and cloud infrastructure, but Thai companies can compete in AI models and applications.

 

"No one taught you to use the internet. You taught yourself," he said. "AI is the same."

 

He also warned that as automation shifts income from labour to capital, wealth could flow overseas.

 

Households and companies, he said, should invest to share in that growth, while the state should consider mechanisms such as an automatic tax on robots and AI and a sovereign wealth fund.

 

He urged officials to make Thailand "as attractive as possible" to digital foreign direct investment and skilled talent, including through more tailored investment incentives and visas, rather than relying on standard promotion packages.

 

 

 

Direction before efficiency

Piyachart, who sits on an OECD economic policy committee and advised on the latest national development plan, offered a more organisational view. He said business has been trained to chase efficiency, but efficiency is worthless if pointed the wrong way.

 

"You can drive south at tremendous speed and ask when you'll reach Chiang Mai," he said. "It may be very efficient, but it's the wrong direction."

 

Beyond the traditional "three Ps" of profit, people and planet, he said business now has to account for a fourth: peace.

 

Geopolitical conflict and uncertainty, he said, have effectively "reset" the system in which companies once competed on operational excellence. The contest now is over; who can adapt to a new context fastest.

 

He argued that risk planning must be tied to growth planning, since every opportunity carries risk. He also criticised a Thai tendency to prefer the safety of being a buyer.

 

"Being a buyer carries little risk in the short term but very high risk for long-term growth," he said, because it means taking no part in creating value.

 

Thailand, he added, should ask what it contributes to projects such as data centres beyond land and legislation. His sharpest criticism was reserved for execution.

 

"We are good at writing plans," he said, "but we hardly have the capacity to turn them into reality."

 

 

Capability over trend-chasing

For companies, Piyachart's central message was to build capability rather than pick sectors. Technology has democratised intelligence, he said, so differences once held by a few individuals are now available to everyone.

 

The question for leaders is therefore not which industry to enter, but whether the organisation can seize emerging opportunities and manage the risks that come with them.

 

He pointed to Kodak and Fujifilm, which faced the same disruption but reached opposite outcomes because one saw its technology applying to other industries and the other did not. He warned against following trends wholesale.

 

"In the end everyone does the same thing, and we cannot be the hero of the new world just by copying others," he said.

 

He also called for a strategic shift in how Thailand competes. Because it cannot win on tangible goods against China's economies of scale, it must compete on intangibles, he said.

 

Italy, with its dense network of small and medium-sized brand owners, was his model. He urged Thailand to export brands rather than products and to funnel the resulting value back to local communities, including provinces outside Bangkok.

 

He said the country's fiscal space is limited, so it must prioritise ruthlessly, work through public-private partnerships and think globally.

 

"Thailand must start by asking what it can serve the world," he said, rather than treating a market of 60 to 70 million people as the end point.

 

Closing the session, both speakers urged business to act now. Piyachart quoted a line from international forums: "The future can no longer be predicted; it can only be prepared for." He said the key was readiness: "If the opportunity runs towards you, can you seize it?"

 

Jirayut said the state must also change its approach, moving from giving "fish" to funding the infrastructure to catch them. He said Thailand could draw in capital and talent if it positioned itself well.