International Forum on Global Views and Applications of Sufficiency Economy Philosophy toward Sustainable Enterprises
12 February 2008, Bangkok, Thailand

It is my pleasure to address the distinguished audience at the opening ceremony of the international forum on Global Views and Applications of Sufficiency Economy Philosophy toward Sustainable Enterprises.

Let me start by explaining why the APO, an organization with the mission of promoting productivity, is sponsoring this international forum in Bangkok. For almost half a century, we have been promoting productivity by organizing projects on productivity tools, technology, methods, approaches, and so forth. Through these projects, we learned, analyzed, and tried to implement in the Asia-Pacific context, ideas and concepts developed mostly in North America and Western Europe. Some examples of those concepts are the Malcolm Baldrige Award System, Balanced Scorecard, ISO9000 and 14000, OHSAS, and Six Sigma.

But when we encountered useful and interesting ideas developed within our own region, we did not hesitate to take them up for our training courses, workshops, or other projects. Obvious examples are those devised in one of the most developed countries in the region, Japan. Take 5S, for example. The APO is conducting still many training courses on this topic, particularly for developing member countries. As recently as 2007, we assisted in the publication of textbooks on 5S in the local languages for both Lao PDR and Cambodia.

Another Japanese concept frequently taken up by our organization is kaizen. It is known to be the single most important concept in Japanese management and has been a key to the competitive success of Japanese manufacturing industries. It is still popular around the world and its utility is being proven again and again by enterprises of all sizes.

We have not promoted Japanese ideas alone. We have highlighted those conceived or developed in other member countries, as long as they are consistent with the mission of the APO. Last year, we organized a multicountry study mission on rural community development to the Republic of Korea. The idea was to learn from the experience of that country in the Saemaul Undong or New Community Movement, which has been widely recognized as a successful model.

In the late 19th century, the Indonesian People’s Credit Banks opened, marking the start of one of the first microfinance systems in the world. Almost 90 years later, Professor Muhammad Yunus established the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, and its eventual success triggered growing enthusiasm for the idea as a strategy for poverty alleviation worldwide. In view of its enormous popularity in the APO region, we invited Professor Yunus to our International Productivity Conference held in Singapore in 2001. Since then we have organized two seminars, one study mission, and one research project on microfinancing. We are planning to hold another project on it, this time in the form of workshop in Bali, Indonesia, this year.

The One Village, One Product movement was initiated in Oita, Japan, to promote regional revitalization. It was an innovative program under which each local community identified one or a few products as locally specific, concentrated resources on its production, and marketed it to the entire country and beyond. In Thailand, this model has been modified and successfully applied to meet local conditions. The main change is that in the Thai model, often referred to as OTOP, a strong leadership role played by the central government is expected. In view of the interest shown by a number of APO member countries in the Thai model, projects on this topic were organized in Bangkok in three consecutive years since 2005 and another one is being planned to be held in Bangkok again in December this year.

The sufficiency economy concept caught our attention when some of the Thai participants in various APO projects referred to it during discussion sessions. As the frequency of such references increased, we thought it would be appropriate to hold a project on the topic so that it would become more widely understood. Therefore, when the FTPI approached us with a proposal to organize a project on the sufficiency economy philosophy, we were more than happy to comply.

Twenty years ago, I was in Bangkok, working for the Japanese Embassy following political, economic, and social developments in the country. As the deputy chief of the mission, I was also overseeing the Japanese preparations for events to mark the 100th anniversary of the relationship between Thailand and Japan. Throughout this period, I heard frequently both from inside and outside the embassy that His Majesty the King of Thailand was spending a lot of time on tours around the country, in the south, the north, and the Northeast, mingling with people, while launching and implementing one royal project after another.

I therefore thought that His Majesty’s primary focus was on giving more opportunities to small farmers who were affected by rapid yet unbalanced economic development and that the sufficiency economy concept based on His Majesty the King’s ideas was more to do with community development than with anything else. It is interesting for me to learn that the concept is broader and applicable at any level from individuals, communities, and enterprises to the management of the national economy. Because the name of this conference is Global Views and Applications of Sufficiency Economy Philosophy toward Sustainable Enterprises, it is clear that the emphasis is on enterprises.

The APO also places great importance on the productivity of enterprises. In doing so, we stress that sustainability should be an integral part of the productivity concept. In that spirit, we have been devoting a considerable amount of time and resources to promote what we call Green Productivity. Our preoccupation with sustainability explains why we have recently organized more projects on corporate social responsibility. The CSR concept has became so popular in Japan that every major Japanese corporation now has an office in charge of CSR which publishes a company CSR report every year. One attractive aspect of the sufficiency economy philosophy is that not only it is concerned with sustainability and but also tries to encompass all of the above and to go beyond them.

I am looking forward to the keynote presentation by Dr. Surin which will no doubt help me broaden my perspective on this concept. I am sure that I will also be enlightened by the viewpoints of Korean, European, Japanese, and Thai scholars and business leaders and their ensuing discussions. I hope that our APO participants will learn as much as possible from the presentations and experiences during the next five days.

I would like to conclude by paying respect to my friends Permanent Secretary Chakaramon of the Ministry of Industry, Dr. Phanit of the FTPI, and Dr. Chirayu, Chairman of the Sufficiency Economy Movement Subcommittee.

Thank you.

Back to list