ABSTRACT
Thailand represents an important culture and economy from both the commercial and the academic standpoints. Prior to the 1900s, Thailand existed for centuries with little cultural change, and was never colonized by another Asian or western power. But the twentieth century brought the introduction of new western technology, values and capital flows. Their devaluation of the Baht in July 1997 triggered the Asian currency crisis, from which the global economy is still recovering. The advanced and developing nations are interdependent, and cannot enjoy stable, positive growth without access to the markets, natural resources and capital of others. Thailand represents an attractive market for investment and trade because of its location, market size and minimal interference from the government (Pornpitakpan, 2000). The United States of America is Thailand’s single largest trading partner with a 1998 two-way trade of US$18 billion. Thailand provides a cost-effective regional manufacturing and distribution base for the Mekong region (Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Burma or Myanmar) which has a combined population of over 125 million people. And yet Thailand is struggling to incorporate the modern forces of western technology and capitalism into its traditional eastern based Buddhist culture, to form a workable synthesis which may, in fact, become a model applicable to other developing Asian countries (Klausner, 1998). Thailand has made a moderate economic comeback since the 1997 crisis, but progress has been slow as indicated by the summary of key economic indicators in Appendix 1. The quality of debt restructuring (for example, public debt and non-performing loans or NPL) appears to be relatively weak. The overall level of investment including consumer and government spending has not yet fully recovered.
