Abstract:
Geographically, Thailand has seaports in the Gulf of Thailand and the Straits of Malacca which connects the Pacific and Indian Oceans. And more than 90% of Thailands international trade has been done via commercial shipping. Thailands merchant fleets of 389 vessels are ranked 34th of 35 primary seafaring nations, or only 0.38% by dead weight tonnage. Seventy percent of Thailands GDP is generated through international trade.
The purposes of this research were threefold: 1) to study the policy and measures of the government to promote the Thai merchant fleets between 1978 and 2016, 2) to study the problems of the Thai merchant fleets between 1978 and 2016, and 3) to develop recommendations for measures to promote the Thai merchant fleets.
The hypothesis of the research was that the government merchant fleet promotion measures affect the expansion of the fleets. Data were collected through relevant documents and in-depth interviews, which included government officials involved in policymaking and policy implementation, as well as administrators in public and private sectors involved in the maritime business. The following data were gleaned from both the documents and interviews.
Research findings showed that the cause of the problems in terms of fleet promoting measures could be attributed to inadequate follow-up and evaluation. The measures were neither systematic nor continuous. The fact that the Thai merchant fleets had not been well developed was due to the problems in formulating and implementing policy and measures of the government The change in government forms where a new political party took over the administrative responsibilities delayed the developmental plans. One weakness of Thailands maritime business was brought about by the fact that there were several government agencies involved, and each agency used their own unique laws and internal regulations.
In terms of recommendations for the two levels of committees: policy-making levels and monitoring of policy complying level, 1) utilizing both sides of the waters (Gulf of Thailand and Andaman Sea) should be investigated, 2) infrastructure implementation should be promoted. This included Phase 3 of Laemchabang Port as a hub for transshipment, multi-modal operator (MTO) transport infrastructure, exemption of value added tax for shipping companies, Multimodal Transport Operators establishment to support the commercial maritime industry, one-stop service, electronic document acceptance, ship inspection for ship registration, acceptance of vessel inspection by ship inspection institute (classification society).