On October 7, Thailand's Minister of Tourism and Sports, Mr. Solawon, delivered a speech on the theme of "Strengthening Thailand's Soft Power" at the ASEAN Economic Outlook 2025 Conference held in the conference room of the Siam Kempinski Hotel in Bangkok, explaining the future development of Thailand's soft power.
Solawon said that from the "2024 Global Soft Power Index", the five countries with the strongest soft power this year are: United States, United Kingdom, China, Japan and Germany. As for Thailand, it ranks 40th in the world in soft power in 2024, and if you look at the ASEAN region alone, Thailand ranks 3rd, behind Singapore (ranked 22nd globally) and Malaysia (ranked 35th globally).
Among them, Thailand can export soft power through tourism to create economic growth, and Thailand's soft power economic value assessment information is as follows:
1. Cultural products: worth more than 1.45 trillion baht, accounting for 8.9% of GDP;
2. Food exports: the export value exceeded 11 trillion baht, ranking 13th in the world;
3. Thailand silk: worth more than 8.5 billion baht;
4. Content industry: Generating revenue of about 200 billion baht/year, ranking first in ASEAN;
5. Foreign films filmed in Thailand: generating about 6,753.09 million baht.