OSMEP Director Suwanachai Lohawattanakul talks about SME growth in Thailand

SMEs continue to play a significant role in determining Thailand’s overall economic growth and job creation. There are three million SMEs making up 99.7% of Thai businesses and employing 10 million people. It is critical for Thai SMEs to consistently evaluate their strengths and weaknesses to succeed in today’s highly competitive, globalized world, and to meet dynamic customer preferences.

Although Thailand has a high rate of entrepreneurship, many Thai entrepreneurs are traditionally forced into business out of necessity, rather than because they had a new technology or a great business opportunity. This means that Thailand’s small businesses have difficulty competing in a crowded, unskilled market, leading to slow growth and poor employment conditions.

To help address some of these challenges, Kenan has been partnering since 2000 with Thailand’s Office of Small and Medium Enterprise Promotion (OSMEP). In 2018, we collaborated with OSMEP and the Tourism Authority of Thailand to support 1,270 business owners and managers to build core skills, navigate the modern business landscape, and expand their organizations.

In this interview Kenan speaks with OSMEP Director, Suwanachai Lohawattanakul, about his views on the following two key questions:

What is the value of the overall SME market in Thailand and how must they adapt to grow the future?

What are some improvements that have come through OSMEP’s collaboration with Kenan?

View the video to see the interview:

Explore Kenan’s work to empower small businesses and Thai SMEs with the knowledge, technology and skills necessary for the digital era: www.kenan-asia.org/small-business-competitiveness