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Thailand Is NOT Vietnam

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Thailand NOT being Vietnam. 

This is something that has come up, I am going to call this one an editorial. This is kind of an op-ed piece of my own here. I have seen this talked about over the past year, year and a half when they have been talking about things like business moving out of China, a lot of it is going to Vietnam and they put Thailand and Vietnam as sort of strawmen in comparing them and creating this in my opinion, a false paradigm that they are somehow competing. I don't really view it that way. 

The other thing is Vietnam is a very different country from Thailand. They are similar in certain ways. They are certainly in the same region but they have very different histories; they have very different backgrounds; their people are very different, it is comparing apples and oranges. 

Now that stated, a recent article from the Bangkok Post titled: Envoys Urge Rule Reform. There was just a quick excerpt in here that just kind of I don't know it got me thinking, it made me want to make this video. Quoting directly: "Many of the Envoys encouraged Thailand to open up to business to reap the benefits of its fast-growing neighbor Vietnam which has a flourishing free market while being ruled by a communist regime." Well that is a strange irony of the 21st century that communist regimes can have a flourishing free market. I find that somewhat odd. I think first of all that is again indicative of this false comparison. Thailand is not a communist country. It has always had free market systems. Yes, I do understand that people can view Thailand's legal system at times as rather Byzantine and yes they do take a more protectionist approach compared to other jurisdictions. However that stated, they are a “different kettle of fish” from Vietnam, to use an idiom. They are a different country. Not all countries are the same. What is going to work for Vietnam may not necessarily work for Thailand. 

Meanwhile, and this is not stating this in the pejorative, it is just an observation; Thailand is a more sophisticated economy. Thailand's economy has been much more open for a lot longer and as a result, their economic infrastructure is a lot different than Vietnam's. Now Vietnam is growing rapidly and kudos to Vietnam for taking the necessary steps to create a much more vibrant economy than the one that they have had in the past but to compare these two countries I think is really disingenuous. I just don't think it is correct. 

The other thing is it is not a competition. Thailand has their priorities. They have a free market system as noted in this article and I urge those who are reading this to go ahead and check this article out. There is a lot in there. Again it is: Envoys Urge Rule Reform, bangkokpost.com but they note Thailand is very high on the ease of doing business ranking, so I don't really understand this notion that Thailand should be more like Vietnam or this comparison. I think Thailand's business environment is quite a healthy one. Sure nothing is perfect. There is certainly reforms that could maybe make things better but there is also something to be said for maybe not just rushing headlong into systemic changes to a country's economy without weighing out what the positive and negative possible ramifications could be. I think Thailand has been very good at that. At a national level they really do pontificate for a while on whether or not a certain course of action that may be beneficial in an economic sense will be wholly beneficial to the nation politically and socially as a whole.