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exports relying on low-cost lower-skilled labour, to a knowledge-based
economy broadly focused on value creation and innovation.

To address this challenge, Thailand has formulated a
comprehensive and ambitious strategy for the long-term structural
transformation of the economy, including:

The 20-year national strategy as the framework to address
key challenges and opportunities; translated in the medium
term into the 12th 5-year plan

Thailand 4.0, a broad agenda focusing on innovation and
creativity; and

Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) a specific multidimensional
investment program to create a geographic growth center,
and to position Thailand as a key economic gateway to the
broader Asian region.

The Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC), as the central operational
program for implementing Thailand’s broader transformation strategy,
provides an illustration of the economic challenge. It is aimed at
strengthening competitiveness by focusing on innovation-driven growth,
building on advanced technology, and high-level skills, in order to
generate high value-added activities, and growing incomes. The EEC
program involves stimulating significant public and especially private
investment in advanced infrastructure, and in selected future-oriented
industries, and more generally, to establish the EEC and Thailand as a
key center in, and economic gateway to the broader Asian region.
Substantively, it includes development of new technologies, such as bio-
tech and mechatronics. It entails transforming existing economic sectors
and industries such as automotive, and agriculture and food processing,
under threat from disruptive technologies; and creating new industries
building on novel technologies, such as smart devices and robotics. The
aim is to create new types of productive enterprises that are competitive
in the emerging global economy, for example through E-commerce.

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