ABSTRACT
The business world of the ethnic Chinese in Thailand resembles that of the other Southeast Asian countries in several basic features. Nearly all Chinese small-, medium- and large-scale enterprises (SMEs and LSEs) are still essentially family-owned firms, and they tend to rely on traditional networks of kinship, clan and common place of origin for all kinds of ancillary services. As in all Southeast Asian countries, a small number of very large business groups, or conglomerates, has come to dominate the modern sector of the economy since the 1960s. However, the socio-economic position of the Sino-Thai, as they are now frequently and most appropriately called, since it emphasizes that they are primarily Thai nationals, not Chinese, differs from that of their counterparts elsewhere in the region in several important respects, especially in regard of its big business groups. 1 Some of these business groups have greatly facilitated the growth of the Sino-Thai business class over the last 40 years and largely contributed to its remarkable economic and even political strength (to some extent) in the 1990s.
