Digital economy critical for Thailand to be competitive, says Jurin
Democrat Party leader Jurin Laksanawisit said on Wednesday that the country needed to boost its digital economy to remain competitive in the world market.
Jurin was expressing his views at an economic policy debate held by TNN 26 Channel on Wednesday.
Jurin said that Thailand was ranked third in Asean behind Singapore and Malaysia in terms of value of digital economy.
He said the current value of Thailand’s digital economy was 2.1 trillion baht, or about 13% of GDP.
If the Democrat Party forms the next government, it would work on boosting the digital economy value to about 20-25% of GDP within three or four years.
A Democrat government would launch comprehensive packages to boost the digital economy. Measures would be implemented for the manufacturing and R&D sectors as well as human resources development to open more business avenues in the digital economy, he said.
Jurin said opportunities in the digital economy would include fintech, healthtech and edtech businesses as well as modern logistics.
To enhance Thailand’s logistics capability, Jurin said he, as the commerce minister, has signed a contract with DP World in the United Arab Emirates.
Jurin added that as the commerce minister, he had also signed agreements for cooperation with big e-commerce platforms, such as Alibaba in China and BigBasket of Tata Digital in India, as well as other platforms in Singapore and the United States.
Jurin added that a Democrat government would also hike R&D spending from 1% of GDP to around 2-3%.
Speaking on the Democrat economic perspective, Jurin said if the next government does not do anything, Thailand’s economic growth would be no more than 3% this year.
He said if the Democrat wins power, it would inject 1 trillion baht into the economy to boost growth to 5%.
He reiterated that the 1-trillion-baht injection would be implemented through several measures.
The Democrat would inject another 500 billion baht by letting various retirement fund members to draw their savings and use it in advance.
Jurin added that 300 billion baht would be allocated for startups and SMEs in the form of soft loans to them.
Jurin vowed that if the Democrat Party wins power, it would reduce electricity cost by ensuring that power plants have access to cheaper natural gas for power generation.
He added that a Democrat government would also review the power tariff system, called the float time or FT system. He said it would be best to do without using the FT to calculate power fees, but if the Electricity Generating Authority still needed it, the FT rate must not be based on estimates of power usage four months ahead.
On the outcome of the May 14 election, Jurin said the Democrat Party expected the next government would be a coalition of several partners.
Jurin said parties should not form a coalition or alignments ahead of voting. He said voters should be allowed to vote by considering the best policies for themselves instead of considering political alignments.
After the election, a party that can muster support from the majority in the House should be the next coalition leader, Jurin said.
