Industrial policy and the development of the automotive industry in Thailand

Kaoru Natsuda and John Thoburn

Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, 2013, vol. 18, issue 3, 413-437

Abstract: It has been argued that restrictions on industrial policy implemented under World Trade Organization rules in the 2000s have greatly reduced the ‘policy space’ in which developing countries can promote industrialisation. This paper examines the case of Thailand's policies in developing one of the most successful automotive industries in the Southeast Asian region. We show that Thailand's use of local content requirements, later abolished under WTO rules, helped promote local suppliers and did not deter foreign investors. Substantial tariff protection of vehicles and components production did not deter exports, and has continued to the present, even under liberalisation policies. Supplementing tariff protection by various fiscal means to promote product champions in the automotive industry, Thailand has succeeded in retaining substantial policy freedom.

Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13547860.2012.742690 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rjapxx:v:18:y:2013:i:3:p:413-437

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rjap20

DOI: 10.1080/13547860.2012.742690

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy is currently edited by Leong Liew

More articles in Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().