Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra has outlined what she thinks is causing Thailand's slow economic growth and promised her administration will complete its full term to speed up economic expansion.
In her weekly "Empowering Thais" programme on Sunday morning, the prime minister said the country's gross domestic product grew by only 2.5% last year because the country had not invested substantially in new industries and had not prepared Thais for future industries over the past decade.
She said that Malaysia had prepared itself for semiconductor manufacturing for a long time while Vietnam had trained its citizens on coding.
“But Thailand has not been serious in these fields. We must upskill and reskill Thai workers,” Ms Paetongtarn said.
She also urged the private sector to help the government develop the national economy. She said commercial banks should approve loans so that small and medium-sized enterprises could increase their investment.
Ms Paetongtarn said that budgetary constraints were also a cause of slow GDP growth because most of the national budget was spent on the government's fixed expenditure.
The prime minister said her government was trying to contain fixed payments, keep the remainding budget for investment and attract foreign investment.
Last year there were foreign investment projects worth 1.13 trillion baht in the country – the highest in a decade – and this year Google, TikTok and Nvidia would invest in Thailand, she said.
Ms Paetongtarn said she wanted to fulfill her first term to stimulate investment and she thought that exponential growth of Thai GDP was possible.
