when a new administration led by General Chaticha Choonhavan (1988-91), the first elected prime minister since 1976, was installed in Thailand with an ambition to detraditionalise the
Conduct of Thai diplomacy, it immediately initiated the process of reinventing the Thai national interest concept. The period saw a decline of the military's role in foreign affairs, coinciding with Thailand's rapid economic growth throughout the 1980s, which peaked with an annual growth rate of 13.2 percent in 1988. Local business communities in Thailand urgently requested the new Government to downplay its security-centric foreign policy and implement a business-oriented one. The intervention of the public sector highlighted the role of non-state actors in the foreign policy-making process. Across the border, signs of the Cambodian conflict reaching its final phase were increasingly evident, including the withdrawal of Vietnamese crops from Cambodia in in 1989, paving the way for the signing of the Agreements on a Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodia Conflict in Paris in 1991 and the general elections in 1993 sponsored by The United Nations (UN) Transitional Authority for Cambodia.