Thailand

With the growing share of renewable energy and emerging technologies, establishing and maintaining adequate flexibility is an important part of Thailand’s power system development and modernisation, and the country’s clean energy transition. Power system flexibility is crucial for ensuring security of supply. Thailand’s power sector has two main avenues to enhance its flexibility. One is to enhance the technical flexibility of the system. The other is to change or reform commercial and contractual structures. This study examines flexibility from both the technical and contractual angle, and their interactions, using the current context of Thailand’s power system. For technical flexibility, the report analyses the flexibility requirements and assesses the value of technical flexibility options, including flexible power plants, pumped storage hydro and battery energy storage systems. For contractual flexibility, the report analyses the impacts of existing power purchase agreement and fuel supply contract structures on system flexibility. This report provides recommendations for the system to be able to use the full range of flexibility options in the most cost-effective and secure way.

The world is increasingly facing a technologically changing employment landscape and such changes are directly affecting the future demand for skills. For regional economies built on labour migration, the impending changes will affect migrants and their families, their countries of origin and the recruitment systems they are attached to – and ultimately disrupt the development benefits of migration. This paper investigates how the future of the employment landscape will affect migration within the Abu Dhabi Dialogue, a regional consultative process for migration in Asia. It investigates the impending changes in the demand for skills in countries of destination, how such changes will affect migration processes and whether countries of origin are ready for the changes. It provides recommendations on how regional consultative processes can foster dialogue between key actors from both countries of origin and destination to better navigate future changes and ensure a smooth transition.

Many Emerging Asian countries have been refining macroprudential policies, particularly since the Global Financial Crisis. For instance, they have developed policies targeting housing markets and broadly transposed the Basel III requirements into their national legislation. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, policy makers now need to identify emerging vulnerabilities and their associated financial stability risks and respond with the appropriate macroprudential tools. This publication provides a detailed overview of the current macroprudential policy situation in Emerging Asian countries and explores how the macroprudential policy toolkit has evolved. The report discusses some of the most pressing challenges to financial stability, including the interaction of macroprudential policy with other policies. It also devotes special attention to macroprudential policies for emerging priorities, such as achieving green goals and updating regulatory frameworks to reflect ongoing Fintech developments. Climate change will indeed create new challenges in financial markets, while Fintech developments bring about many economic opportunities and deepen financial systems, but present a variety of novel risks requiring rapid policy responses.

Informal employment, defined through the lack of employment-based social protection, constitutes the bulk of employment in developing countries, and entails a level of vulnerability to poverty and other risks that are borne by all who are dependent on informal work income. Results from the Key Indicators of Informality based on Individuals and their Households database (KIIbIH) show that a disproportionately large number of middle‑class informal economy workers receive remittances. Such results confirm that risk management strategies, such as migration, play a part in minimising the potential risks of informal work for middle‑class informal households who may not be eligible to social assistance. They further suggest that middle‑class informal workers may have a solvent demand for social insurance so that, if informality-robust social insurance schemes were made available to them, remittances could potentially be channelled to finance the extension of social insurance to the informal economy.

Biorefineries present an alternative to fossil-based production, and can create employment, wealth and the ecosystem needed to make them function. Thailand is establishing a bioeconomy with widespread biorefining as a strategy for future economic growth. There is political will to establish in Thailand, if feasible, small, decentralised biorefineries to which farmers can locally deliver biomass as feedstock, which can then be processed into bio-based products. This would help to relieve rural poverty, which is still a problem in some areas of Thailand despite progress. Developing a biorefining roadmap will help to assess the feasibility of such an initiative.

Skills are central to the capacity of countries and people to thrive in a rapidly changing world. Recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic will require countries to co-ordinate interventions to help recent graduates find jobs, reactivate the skills of displaced workers and use skills effectively in workplaces. Megatrends such as globalisation, climate change, technological progress and demographic change will continue to reshape work and society. Countries should take action now to develop and use more effectively the skills required for the world of the future and at the same time make their skills systems more resilient and adaptable in the context of change and uncertainty. The OECD Skills Strategy provides countries with a strategic approach to assess their skills challenges and opportunities. The foundation of this approach is the OECD Skills Strategy framework allowing countries to explore how they can improve i) developing relevant skills, ii) using skills effectively, and iii) strengthening the governance of the skills system. This report applies the OECD Skills Strategy framework to Southeast Asia, providing an overview of the region’s skills challenges and opportunities in the context of COVID-19 and megatrends, and identifying good practices for improving skills outcomes. This report lays the foundation for a more fully elaborated Skills Strategy for Southeast Asia.

Under Action 14, countries have committed to implement a minimum standard to strengthen the effectiveness and efficiency of the mutual agreement procedure (MAP). The MAP is included in Article 25 of the OECD Model Tax Convention and commits countries to endeavour to resolve disputes related to the interpretation and application of tax treaties. The Action 14 Minimum Standard has been translated into specific terms of reference and a methodology for the peer review and monitoring process. The peer review process is conducted in two stages. Stage 1 assesses countries against the terms of reference of the minimum standard according to an agreed schedule of review. Stage 2 focuses on monitoring the follow-up of any recommendations resulting from jurisdictions' Stage 1 peer review report. This report reflects the outcome of the Stage 1 peer monitoring of the implementation of the Action 14 Minimum Standard by Thailand.

Thailand has had a remarkable economic development trajectory over the past 60 years and foreign direct investment (FDI) has been pivotal in this success. Thailand was one of the first movers in opening up to manufacturing FDI and in establishing proactive investment promotion and facilitation policies. While challenges remain in some areas of responsible business conduct, there is strong political will to address them. Thailand aspires to become a high income economy by 2037 by upgrading to a value based green economy. Inward FDI will play a prominent role in achieving this goal but this requires a concerted effort to reform the investment climate to remain an attractive host to foreign investment and to benefit to the full extent from that investment. While the COVID-19 crisis might temporarily delay progress, the policy recommendations in this review draw attention to potential reform priorities to help Thailand fulfil its development ambitions aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals and to contribute to a more inclusive and sustainable recovery from the pandemic.

In light of population ageing, globalisation, automation, and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, Thailand’s labour market is being significantly reshaped, and so are the skills required for higher employability. This paper analyses the capacity of Thailand’s education and training system to develop relevant skills from the pre-primary to higher education level, and explores the current state of skills imbalances in the country. It identifies accessibility of schooling, provision of relevant teacher training, and sustained competitiveness of higher education institutions as key areas for improvement. It also points to large skills shortages in the education, and health and social work sectors, and prevalent qualification and field-of-study mismatches. The findings highlight that a responsive education system, together with high-quality life-long learning opportunities that are accessible to all and aligned with skill needs, will be essential to equip Thai people with the right skills for navigating the rapidly changing world.