Thailand is a partner country of German development cooperation. On behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, GTZ has been engaged in Thailand for over forty years. During this time, Thai-German cooperation has covered almost all areas of Technical Cooperation.

In the coming years, cooperation will concentrate on economic reform and transition to a market economy. With a view to strengthening the competitiveness of small and medium-sized Thai enterprises (SMEs), this priority area will be addressed in an integrated programme approach with two components.

Since Thailand has a fundamental interest in stable economic and political relations primarily with the poor neighbouring states Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, the Thai Government is also engaged as a donor in development policy. This affords new interesting prospects for trilateral Technical Cooperation in Thailand's neighbouring countries.

Thai-German development cooperation began in 1959 as the Thai and the German governments signed a project agreement on founding what later became the King Mongkut Institute of Technology, North Bangkok (KMITNB). Today, this is a showcase for sustainability in Thai-German cooperation.

Thai small and medium-sized enterprises in particular face new challenges. Amidst advancing global economic convergence, they have forfeited their earlier competitive advantages and are increasingly unable to compete with low-wage countries such as China or Vietnam.

At the same time, SMEs play a major role in the Thai economy: They make up more than 90 percent of the enterprises in the country, earn 42 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) and provide 56 percent of the jobs. The 850,000 or so small and medium-sized enterprises, however, also account for about 55 percent of environmental pollution in Thailand.