Posted on 01 Dec 2009
Asean Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan yesterday urged more local and regional businesses to take advantage of the grouping's trade and investment privileges after finding out that the major investors were global corporations.
"Unfortunately, very few Thai firms have become multinational companies and are able to invest in other Asean countries," Surin said.
Asean offers many special incentives for promoting investment, he told the Thai Chamber of Commerce's annual convention.
Foreign direct investment in Asean was US$60 billion (Bt1 trillion) last year, of which only $11 billion was from Asean investors, mostly Singaporean and Malaysian, he said.
Although Thai products are sold in many countries, only large firms have benefited from this. Thai firms have not done their own marketing, but only allowed big multinational corporations to enjoy the larger margins, he said.
Thai businesses should do their own production and marketing in a bid to maximise the dividends from regional integration under the Asean Economic Community (AEC).
Asean aims to achieve a single market in 2015. Next year, import duties for six members -
Asean has also committed to allowing a free flow of workers in five years under the AEC.
"Thai firms must learn to adopt this opportunity to develop their business," Surin said.
Thais need to improve their language skills, particularly in English. They will have more chances to work in other Asean countries and in multinational corporations, which will do more business in the region.
Thai workers should also bone up on other knowledge to remain competitive after the labour market is liberalised, he added.
