“The average income of Thais is US$5,000-$6,000 per year. In higher-income countries, such as Malaysia and South Korea, it’s about $10,000,” more than Bt350,000, he said.

Strategic reforms in industry, agriculture and services are needed to allow Thailand to move from a country with low annual growth in gross domestic product of only 2-3 per cent back to one with high growth of 5 per cent.

The government is now on the right track in launching clusters and innovations to stimulate local industry. It has launched many stimulus measures to support small and medium-sized enterprises and agriculture, especially farmers, Tos said.

“Where we would like to see progress is in the service sector,” he said.

More than 6 million Thais travelled abroad last year. They spent Bt170 billion on travel costs and shopping, up 10 per cent from 2014, he noted.

“It is quite worrying as annual growth in domestic spending is no more than 2 per cent. Despite the rising number of inbound tourists, their spending here is increasing by only 2 per cent per annum, which is very low.

“The question I would like to raise with all concerned people is how to attract both Thais and foreigners to spend more in Thailand,” said Tos, adding that the tourism and retail sectors contributed about 25 per cent of GDP. Tos is involved in the government’s “Pracha Rath” project aimed at boosting the economy.

“We are working in four major strategic areas, which are to provide assistance and support to SMEs, to enhance the development of border towns as trade centres with [Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Malaysia and Vietnam], to make trade with the CLMMV market easier, and to boost the tourism and education sectors.

“We [Central Group] have provided support to local communities throughout the value chain. This includes provincial-product development, procurement of local farm produce, providing market-places with retail space and events to promote such community products, and initiating a ‘Big Brother’ project by hosting short- and long-term coaching and business seminars for small and medium-sized entrepreneurs in the communities.”

He said Central Group was operating 14 sub-projects to support SMEs as well as lower-income earners, such as farmers, community products and Otop (One Tambon One Product), and younger entrepreneurs living in the cities.

For instance, six products have been selected by the group for its pilot projects for provincial product development. They are sweet tamarind in Phetchabun, bananas in Angthong, longan in Lamphun, Sang Yod rice in Phatthalung, longkong in the Southern region, and mangosteen in Rayong.

“We have provided turnkey support in developing those agricultural and community products from the beginning. They include product design and development as well as packaging, and selling those products at the group’s retail channels, such as Central Food Hall and Tops,” Tos said.

He added that about 60 different events would be hosted by Central Group this year to support SMEs, farmers and community products.

Tos said the group so far had nurtured 278 SMEs for selling products in its retail network, generating annual income of about Bt600 million. Income from SMEs is expected to reach Bt790 million this year.

Kriengsak Tantiphipop, CEO of The Emporium Group, is also involved in the Pracha Rath project initiated by the government and the private sector to generate income and stimulate spending in the country. He said he had proposed two key ways to raise tourism revenue.

They are the reduction of import duty on luxury products, which would make Thailand a real shopping paradise, and the creation of man-made attractions to lure more “quality tourists” from all over the world.

“In Thailand, the import duty charged on luxury products is now as high as 30-40 per cent. The country would be able to compete neck-to-neck with duty-free [markets] such as Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong if the government reduced the duty to not more than 10 per cent,” he said.

“The tourism authority anticipates about 32 million in-bound tourists visiting Thailand this year. With a revamp of the import duty, I expect the country would gain another 20 million foreign tourists. It would also encourage Thai shoppers to spend their shopping money in Thailand.”