Foreign Trade and the Balance of Payments: Performance and Prospects

Abstract

Growing Trade Orientation of Economy Thailand has had a dynamic record in foreign trade over the past two decades. The country has been praised by Hla Myint and others for its outward-looking trade and investment policies. Thus far such policies have, in aggregate monetary terms, proved strikingly successful. Thailand, long known for conservatism and nationalism in its economic and political affairs, has been bold indeed over recent years. Risks have been taken which have thus far paid good dividends. Brink manship in siding with the United States in the Vietnam War has brought much money into the country. An increasingly open official attitude to foreign investment adopted since the amendment of the Promotion of Industrial Investment Act in 1965 has encouraged the development of industry, construction and service indus tries, often in collaboration with Thai entrepreneurs. The ratio of foreign trade to national income has been rising over the years, and so have earnings from overseas services. The value of merchandise exports and of net foreign services was equal to 17% of Gross Domestic Product in 1969 and 22 % in 1973. In 1974 it must have been still higher. Imports have risen in proportion, leaving a gap on foreign payments to be met by capital inflow, either grants or loans. This enlarged role of foreign factors of course increases the country's vulnerability to the transmission of world trends to the domestic economy. The foreign exchange record in 1974 showed quite dramatic change. It belied the dismal forecasts made by many economists a couple of years ?go about the impact on Thailand of the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the region, the less favourable investment climate, and the hike in international oil prices. Thanks to a boom in prices for many of its commodities, a rise in volume of some of these