The Board of Investment (BoI) has urged Thai investors to expand into Africa and Central Asia, whose vast populations and growing economies provide potentially huge markets.
Chokedee Kaewsang, the BoI's deputy secretary-general, said several countries in Central Asia and Africa have growing economies that need investment.
Central Asia includes countries such as the former Soviet states of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. The region has roughly 66 million consumers.
Besides expanding sales and investment into the former Soviet Union, investors in Central Asia could also expand into the Middle East.
"The BoI wants to encourage Thai investors to expand abroad, where we see greater opportunities to grow," Mr Chokedee said.
"In contrast, the domestic market is getting smaller with fierce competition. So moving forward to an overseas market would be a good answer."
The BoI wants to increase Thailand's value investment overseas and in emerging markets.
"Some countries such as Kenya, South Africa, Ethiopia and Uzbekistan are already Thailand's traditional trade partners, importing several agricultural products from Thailand," Mr Chokedee said. "So it would be easy to expand trade and investment relationships there."
Since Central Asia and Africa contain many resource-rich countries, foreigners have already invested in the infrastructure, mining, industrial and agriculture sectors.
"Thai investors should take advantage of several types of trade agreements that Thailand has with other countries, as these would help increase their competitive advantage to open bigger markets," Mr Chokedee said.
To coach Thais to invest abroad, the BoI has set up a training programme for interested businesses.
Some 263 Thai investors have already joined the programme, of which 20% have begun investing outside of Thailand.
"Many Thais have started investing abroad in food, health care, spas and agriculture processing," Mr Chokedee said.