Thailand
Singapore and Thailand share digital economy experiences
Singapore’s plan to become the world’s first Smart Nation is well under way as the city-state adapts its economy to many technological changes, says Beh Swan Gin, chairman of the Economic Development Board.
“Remaking” the economy means that technology will be merged into every aspect of Singaporean people’s lives, he said at the recent launch in Bangkok of the International Advisory Council of Singapore Management University (SMU). “The operating environment is changing very rapidly”, he said, noting that Singapore and others have been confronted with not only the changing behaviours of superpowers but also the impacts of globalisation.
“There are clearly excesses in the financial sector, for instance, and growing income inequality,” he said. “Offshoring and globalisation of supply chains has indeed brought a lot of benefit but has also caused a lot of disruption to society and the development of the economy.
“The point I am making is simply that there will not be a status quo going forward and if countries in Southeast Asia continue to pursue the same economic development approaches, there will be diminishing returns. As for Singapore, we are already starting to move.”
In 1965, Singapore’s nominal gross domestic product (GDP) per capita was around US$500, the same as in Mexico and South Africa at the time. In 2015 the figure was $56,000, in line with Germany and the United States. It is one of the world’s greatest economic success stories but its leaders believe they can do even better.
“We started from labour-intensive, [moved] to skill-intensive industry and over time now to technology-intensive industry … and today, the [offshoring] trend remains intact where 60% of the economy is internationally tradeable. Hence, when the global economy is doing well, the Singapore economy will also do well,” said Dr Beh.
The move from an industry-driven to an innovation-led economic model, he said, entails attracting new investment, technology and talent to Singapore with more focus on market segments in which the country can be “more useful and value-added”. That also means focusing on attracting companies that want to participate in Asia’s growth, by showing them that Singapore is an ideal hub because of its commitment to harnessing the power of digital technology for maximum service efficiency.
At the citizen level, meanwhile, the Smart Nation initiative is taking shape in areas such as transport, with interactive maps at bus stops and expanding WiFi connectivity. The Land Transport Authority now uses GPS data to track how fast or slow a bus is running and how many people are on board. That helps identify choke points at different times of day and make adjustments as needed.
Thailand can learn from Singapore’s digital progress but the country’s own digital plan is “not theory anymore”, said Pichet Durongkaveroj, minister of Digital Economy and Society.
He pointed to efforts to harness technology such as the Internet of Things (IoT) for the tourism and food industries. Plans are also afoot for an IoT Institute and a big data analytics centre, while smart city pilot projects, such as free WiFi in public spaces and expanded closed-circuit TV to increase safety, are under way in Phuket.
“The implementation of digital technology for national development on three fronts is already ongoing,” said Mr Pichet. “The first is to reduce disparity in Thai society, which includes [internet] availability, accessibility and affordability and this is what we are already doing.”
He said work was now 75% complete on the 20-billion-baht national broadband strategy to provide affordable high-speed internet access to low-income households in rural areas of 75,000 villages. “We will try to finish the job this year.” Along with hard infrastructure, authorities are expanding e-government services, promoting startups, creating digital telecentres for local entrepreneurs and small businesses to spur e-commerce, and drafting legislation to support the new economy.
“Secondly, we are making sure that society progresses along with the digital economy plans, which coincides perfectly with the notion of Thailand 4.0 and this is something that is exciting,” said Mr Pichet. “It is a huge effort and something that requires a lot of participation, especially from the point of view of public-private partnership.”
One benefit of the national broadband project will be the development of “village level e-commerce”, he told the audience at the second Industry Leaders Dialogue co-hosted by Bangkok Bank and SMU.
“This development comprises an e-marketplace, e-payment system and e-logistics, or the delivery part. We have done that in more than 100 villages and we feel that the villagers can now do it themselves. We are now seeing the fruit of that effort as their incomes are starting to grow from markets they have never seen before.
“They can see for the first time when money is coming into their bank accounts electronically and they can see that they can control where they are delivering their products throughout the country for the first time. This nexus means that through digital technology, we can leapfrog the old pattern of national development but we need private-sector help.”
For example, he said, businesses could help with the provision of connected devices to help the million or so village health volunteers “do better work”. These volunteers have a long history in Thailand and play a key role in communicating health information to people.
But the ultimate success of Thailand 4.0 will rest on the availability of skilled people who know how to make the most of technology, the minister said.
According to a 2016 report by the World Bank, around 84% of the workforce in Thailand is unskilled. The proportion of skilled workers in the overall labour force is lower than in Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines. As well, it said, one-third of Thai students aged 15 or under lack basic proficiency in literacy, which is lower than in Vietnam and several Asian countries.
Mr Pichet said human resource development was not something the Education Ministry can do alone, but has to be addressed by all parties, especially the private sector.
“The time for saying that digital only fits large companies and only people in Bangkok is no more, digital technology is friendlier than that,” he said.
“It can be customised to cater to the needs of people who have less education and here is the opportunity for us, public and private, to deploy digital technology so that they can learn better”, such as providing tablets for educational purposes to children in rural areas, he added.
Source: https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/news/1450839/singapore-and-thailand-share-digital-economy-experiences