Take these same examples and apply it to hotels (which house tourists, one of Thailand’s main economic drivers) or hard drive factories (Thailand is one of the world’s largest hard drive exporters) and you can see what type of snowball effect it may have.
Just for shits and giggles, let’s look at another example: One sector expected to grow when AEC is implemented is tourism – a major part of the Thai economy – due to the elimination of visa requirements for tourists from ASEAN countries. Sounds great! But hang on – other countries are hungry for tourist bucks too, so the Thai tourism sector will have to improve its quality. To do this, the Thai Department of Tourism is raising its standards so that all tour guides will need to have better second-language skills. Which means better language education. Which means more qualified teachers. Which means paying teachers well enough that they don’t bail for Singapore or Japan where teachers make more money. A good story in the Bangkok post outlines some of the problems; seems that the powers that be know things will be changing, but…you know…This Is Thailand.