Kiatchai Sophastienphong, the vice minister for finance, yesterday said the government planned to encourage skilled workers who are employed overseas to return home in order to help solve the current skilled labour shortage in the aviation, logistics, biotechnology, and medical and wellness sectors. He said retired people living abroad will also be wooed, as many of them are experts in various fields. Financial experts in particular are urgently needed.

“The government has asked all embassy offices worldwide to collect information about Thais working abroad and their life and work experience before launching comprehensive packages to encourage them to return to their motherland,” Kiatchai said.

“Our main targets for the first phase are workers and experts in Hong Kong, Singapore, England, the US and Australia,” The Thai embassy in Hong Kong has already kicked off its data collection exercise.

Kiatchai said that the government also wanted to attract people working in the automotive, smart electronics, agricultural, biotechnology, digital and robotics sectors.

“There is no timeline for the action plan to get people to return to the country, but the government wants this scheme to begin this year,” he said.

Rolf-Dieter Daniel, president of the European Association for Business and Commerce, said that Thailand should take a holistic approach in developing mid-and long-term strategies to alleviate the labour shortage.

The EABC’s 2016 position paper unveiled yesterday said the resumption of talks between the EU and Thailand on a free-trade agreement is highly important to improve economic relations between them. The liberalisation of the service sector is key to help boost competitiveness, productivity, and economic growth. Thailand has been encouraged to allow further liberalisation and develop better use of hardware and software tools.