Over the 1960s and 1970s, the structure of international trade considerably changed.
Diversification began dramatically in the early 1970s, both within the agricultural sector into
a wide range of crops, and out of agriculture into manufacturing and trade in services, In the
first half of the 1970s, Thailand was severely hurt by the first oil shock. Fortunately, being a
major exporter of primary commodities whose prices increased steeply between 1972 and
1974 as a result of the world wide drought, the Thai economy still performed soundly.
Thereafter, the economy promptly recovered in the second half of the 1970s through a surge
in infrastructure investment and a rapid expansion of manufactured exports