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investment in technology and innovation, particularly by the
private sector.
Institutional changes required are considerable. Education and
skill development, for example, requires strengthening
educational institutions, and increasing collaboration among
educational institutions, private firms, and government
agencies. With respect to innovation, it means strengthening
the capacity of innovation-related government agencies and
research institutions; and effective linkages between
universities and firms. Institutional change will have to be a
collective and collaborative process, over an extended period
of time.
Uneven distribution of costs and benefits will be unavoidable.
There will be groups directly benefiting from particular
infrastructure projects and investments in new high-
technology/high-skill industries; and groups benefitting less,
e.g. lower skill labour; and groups and communities asked to
shoulder significant costs. This is not unusual: all growth
strategies, by their very nature, involve an uneven distribution
of benefits and costs. The challenge is to ensure that the
development path involves improving the quality of life of the
majority of the population, directly and/or indirectly.
Therefore while the structural transformation of the Thai economy,
for example through the EEC program, is essential to address both
domestic and external changes, it faces substantial implementation
challenges. It requires significant resources, a collective effort, and an
extended time horizon for economic and societal change. Implementing
this economic transformation strategy will also require creating and
maintaining a level of societal consensus, and therefore a supportive but
also adaptive political system. This leads to the third proposition.
ปาฐกถานำ