The history of the economic growth of the country since 1960 can be divided into 3 periods: The period of industrialization of the 60's backed up by industrialization for replacement of import, the transition to the export oriented industries during the 70's to the early 80's, and the rapid expansion of export industries as accompanied by an improvement of the international economic environment.
The current 7th economic plan places a strong confidence on the country's economic development potentiality based on the experience of the rapid economic growth since the late 80's. It also is conscious of mutual dependency with the world economy and is deeply committed to becoming the core of the economic development of Southeastern Asia and Indochina. On the other hand, it also stresses an importance of utilizing results of the economic development for an improvement of the quality of people's life and for realization of social justice.
(2) Historical review of GDP
In the 3 consecutive years from 1988 through 1990, Thailand achieved a 2-digit economic growth, however, her real economic growth after 1991 has lingered at around 7 to 8 %. The GDP in 1992 was about 2.8 trillion Bahts (about $110 billion), which is about 1/33 of that of Japan and 1/3 of that of Korea. The income level of the people has been doubled almost every 10 years achieving $188 billion in 1992, which was ranked at the 57th among the 132 countries of the world and equal to Poland and Ukraine.
(The following table shows the history of Thailand economic growth for 1994.)
