After the Asian Crises, importance given to the SMEs has significantly increased. SMEs are known to have several desirable outcomes for instance,economic use of capital, generating employment opportunities, and the high relation towards more equitable distribution of income and rural development. In case of Thailand, do SMEs actually play a major role in its economy?
Its only recently that SMEs gained importance in Thailand. SMEs make up about 80% of the total industrial establishments. However, their contribution towards the industrial employment is relatively smaller and their share in output along with added value is even smaller. After the economic crises in 1997, the Thai government began to focus more on SMEs as they were the ones that suffered most and it sparked criticism for the sector. In the past Thai government has been neglecting SMEs and focused more on conglomerates and LE's in terms of favourable policies and attracting foreign investment in early 1990's.
However, currently the contribution of SMEs to total GDP in Thailand, at 37%, is higher than in Malaysia, at 32.7%, it lags far behind Indonesia, where SMEs contributed to 59.1% of GDP in 2012. The contribution of SMEs to GDP in Thailand declined by 1.7% in the period 2007–2012, while Malaysia and Indonesia saw a rise in the contribution of SMEs to their GDP's in the same period.
Since SMEs are so important for the Thai economy, it is important to increase their resilience. One of the ways to increase their resilience is to provide them with stable finance.
