Who drives the automotive sector? Thailand selective policies

Purpose: We critically analyse the case of selective industrial policies for automotive industry in Thailand. Approach: Founding on previous literature and official government documents, we describe the implemented policies, dividing them in four phases according to the main trend they followed. We suggest which results the policies have or have not reached by analysing the current state of the sector. Findings: Our main point is that selective policies implemented in the country were successful in helping the development of the sector as a whole, contributing to the role of Thailand as main actor in the international market. However, such policy initiatives were not able to solve some of the main issues of automotive sector in the country related to local development, such as the technology dependence on foreign (mainly Japanese) firms and the weakness of local suppliers.