The Bowring Treaty seems to have given little immediate stimulus to
the volume of exports from Bangkok, but the period from the 1870s saw
a fundamental change in both the composition and level of Siam’s foreign
trade. As a proportion of total exports, rice rose from 44 per cent in 1861–5
to 62 per cent by the mid-1870s, reaching over 70 per cent by the time of
the world rice boom at the turn of the twentieth century. Other key export
commodities in demand in world markets included teak and tin. Together,
these three items comprised over 90 per cent of Siam’s exports by the
early twentieth century (Sompop 1989: 161). Bangkok was the destination
of the great proportion of exported goods. In the newly liberalised
economy, Bangkok played a key role and experienced considerable change