The Prime Minister promotes “soft power” to drive the Thai economy, elevating the festivals “Maha Songkran – Loi Krathong – Phi Ta Khon – Candle Festival – Bun Bang Fai” to be “Festival country”, travel all year round, creating a circular economy in the local area.
Ms. Paethongtarn Shinawatra, Prime Minister, delivered a special lecture on the topic of ‘Thai Soft Power: How to Make It Powerful’ at the Daily News Talk 2024 seminar ‘Soft Power: Opportunities for Thailand’, which was attended by Mr. Phumtham Wechayachai, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, Mr. Pichai Naripthaphan, Minister of Commerce, Ms. Sudawan Wangsupakitchkosol, Minister of Culture, Mr. Chulaphan Amornvivat, Deputy Minister of Finance, Mr. Chusak Sirinil, Minister to the Prime Minister’s Office, and Ms. Jiraporn Sindhuphrai, Minister to the Prime Minister’s Office.
The Prime Minister gave a special speech that today, Thailand has been stuck in the middle-income trap for decades. Raising the level to become a high-income countr
y will not be easy. Due to factors such as competitiveness, quality of education, and changes in technology, it is essential for Thailand to make major changes to its economic strategy.
One of the important strategies is the soft power strategy. The government believes that soft power will be the new engine that will drive Thailand’s economy to soar within the next decade. It will be a policy that can improve the quality of life for tens of millions of Thais. Thailand is rich in cultural capital that is charming, marketable, and developable, making it easy for foreigners to fall in love with it. I am confident that Thais are talented, have potential, and have creative skills that are waiting for an opportunity to develop.
The Prime Minister continued that the key to the soft power policy is to develop low-skilled labor to become high-skilled labor, and then increase the value of products and services from high skills with creativity, further developing with innovation, and creating branding that has a story
for people around the world to understand and see its value. Developing and adding more to existing skills (Up-skill) and training to create new skills (Re-skill) are very important and necessary. All parties, including government agencies, Academics, universities, private sectors, and labors have been saying this all the time, but in the past, they have often been done separately, without any serious integration into a system. In implementing this soft power policy under the project ‘One Family, One Soft Power’ or OFOS – One Family, One Soft Power, we will make all relevant sectors come together to drive and design training courses that can be used in real careers, both on-site and online training. Everyone can study for free, without any educational qualifications. This will allow the potential of skills to be raised from the lowest to the middle and the highest levels without limitations and with the easiest access.
Ms. Paethongtarn also said that our goal is to enable Thai people to work in careers relat
ed to soft power in all fields, to upgrade products and services from Thai culture to be of higher quality, more creative, and more charming, so that they do not have to worry about competing on price with manufacturers who have advantages in mass production or the Economy of Scale. For example, Korakot, a bamboo sculpture brand from Thai wisdom, weaves bamboo into lamps, decorations, and beautiful furniture, using bamboo to play with light and shadows prominently, which has been very successful on the world stage, to the point that a French luxury brand hired Korakot to make a window backdrop for its current collection. This is the image that the government wants to see in developing local wisdom and putting creativity to the world level. We want to upgrade every artisan, every locality, to have the opportunity to learn and use creative skills like this to the world level because the world market is vast, borderless, and limitless. The Prime Minister also said
that, for example, the Thai gem industry has gr
own from tens of billions 20 years ago to more than 500,000 billion at present, and can grow many times over, but there is a shortage of many gemologists because there is no systematic training, and there is a shortage of highly skilled workers, so they have to compete for them, which is a great pity in wasting opportunities. Because there is a great shortage of potential labor here. In addition, we must not only be the world’s gem production center, we must also push for Thai gem brands to be famous and recognized worldwide.
‘From my experience at the ACD and ASEAN meetings, many countries are very interested in Thai culture, especially Thai food, which each country has different interests,’ said Ms. Paethongtarn.
The Prime Minister added that for the food industry, we must change Thailand from an agricultural exporter to a modern food industry. In addition to promoting ‘Thai Kitchen to the World Kitchen’ to have authentic Thai restaurants and creativity in every dish around the world, we also use food pre
servation technology that can be stored for 2 years, adding food innovation with Food Lab that helps maintain the taste and smell of food. A very famous example in America is frozen Khanom Krok, which is sold in supermarkets and sells very well. It has become a viral trend because it can maintain the taste of Khanom Krok well by using food preservation innovations. For example, Italian food that is currently winning the hearts of people around the world. Every country has an Italian restaurant. Every supermarket sells frozen Italian food, including pizza and pasta. We believe that ready-to-eat Thai food such as Tom Yum Goong, Beef Panang, Pad Krapow, and Chicken Tom Kha will make foreign countries know us more.
The Prime Minister said that today, innovations in food preservation, such as retort technology, frozen cooking, food shelf life extension, and food freshness preservation, It is much cheaper. These technologies are new opportunities for Thai food. If we imagine that if we have a rice mill in the comm
unity, we can have food preservation innovations like a community retort machine. According to research from the Food Institute, the price of the machine can be reduced to only a few hundred thousand. Any community that has a great menu will be able to increase the value of local food menus that can be exported all over the world. Therefore, we must hurry to do this because food security will be a source of income and will be important for the world in the future.
The Prime Minister continued that Thailand still has opportunities in the holistic healthcare industry (Wellness) because the global trend is turning to being interested in being healthy, having good physical and mental health. This business is growing a lot all over the world, including in our country, which Thailand has a complete cycle. In terms of healthy food, Thai herbs, we have wisdom that is a world heritage, such as Thai massage. There is Thai boxing for exercise for health and it is also famous all over the world. In addition, Thailand’s
medical strength gives Thailand a great opportunity in the Wellness industry, which must be systematically developed further.
There is also talk about Human-made tourism, where we will elevate various festivals, whether it is Songkran, Loi Krathong, or local festivals such as Phi Ta Khon, Candle Festival, and Bun Bang Fai, to enhance the image of a festival country, a country where you can travel all year round, with new festivals to visit all the time, which will create a large-scale festival economy in every locality, including preparing Thailand to be a place for world-class music festivals, which is something the government is giving importance to. All of these are opportunities for Thailand under the term ‘soft power.’ We will elevate the lives of our people according to our goals.
‘The most important thing is the people and the government. We are partners in Thailand. Partners in Thailand will help develop Thailand to be prosperous, a developed country with high income, and all Thais will no longer be
poor. When our people develop their own skills, increase their income and status to be wealthy, the government will be able to collect more taxes. The taxes collected will be used to further develop the country. Let’s work together for the country we all love,’ said Ms. Paethongtarn.
Source: Thai News Agency