Thai export during global COVID-19 pandemic

The global disruption of COVID-19 pandemic has widely raised concerns among global leadership institutions, especially, WHO. It does not concern only for global health issues, but it also responded to rising problems of economic impact. Even though, Thailand was ranked within the first tier group of strongest health policy for the COVID-19 management. But, the lacunae, however, was found in terms of the economic mismanagement due to complications of the situation that occurred in Thailand tourism and export economy. This paper examines, in general, the short-term economic effects on Thailand's export which caused by the national lockdown policy during the COVID-19 global widespread. This study aims to understand, in particular, how the 20-Year National Strategic Plan would fairly be one of the root causes of economic mismanagement of Thai government towards COVID-19 economic impact. This study employed the qualitative methodology in order to acquire data. The data will be collected from (1) documents from the government official websites, World Bank data, Economics journals, newspapers, and other related-academic studies; (2) conference participation of the affected groups of Thailand’s leading exporters and public authorities during August, 29 to 31, 2020 at Royal City Hotel (Bangkok) on the agenda of “Strengthening Capacity of Industrial Competitiveness in the aftermath of the COVID-19.” The findings show that Thailand’s export economy was affected by the COVID-19 in different sectors, but not all of them, such as the jewelry exporters. But, some of them are still operable and benefited such as the electronics industries and cardboard exporters. Although, the COVID-19 complicates the problems of Health, but the deep reason of economic miscalculation lied within the rationale of the National Strategic Principle. Because of the struggling threat perceptions and inability to change, this paper argues that the 20-Year plan contributes to the economic unpreparedness in Thailand's export economy amidst global disorders.