Suphajee said she did not deny that other regions have seen growth, but her point was whether Thailand should continue growing while taking the same risks as before. What Thailand must do, she said, is find additional new markets and expand the overall base by selling more.
“So, to say Europe is growing, the Middle East is growing—does it grow enough?” she said. “What we must continue is how to enter new markets and make them grow more than before, so we can reduce reliance on the countries we currently depend on for one-third of our exports.”
She said the strategy for traditional markets is to maintain them and manage them strategically, through coordination between security, foreign affairs and trade. “And which party is more ready to do this than Bhumjaithai?” she asked.
Traditional markets must be maintained, she said, while new markets should be made to grow further. With exports concentrated in countries that are in conflict, she said Thailand faces high risk and must expand much more in other markets.
On claims that exports have problems, she said the first concentration issue is among exporters. Thailand has around 30,000 registered exporters, but only 7,000–8,000 are large exporters and they account for 74% of the share, while the rest are SMEs. The party therefore wants to support this group by building skills to strengthen SMEs, with programmes to improve access to funding, help them find markets, and protect SMEs from nominee businesses—work she said has already begun. She questioned why those who have managed the economy for many years had not fixed this issue, adding that SMEs must grow continuously and more strongly than before.