The report is the outcome of a joint project of UNCTAD with the National Statistical Office(NSO) of Thailand which builds upon the measurement of information economy statistics toenable the assessment of the economic impact of information and communicationtechnology (ICT). This is one of the first studies to use official developing-country data tomeasure the productivity impact of ICT use in business. The project is part of UNCTAD’scapacity-building programme on measuring ICT to help developing countries to improve theproduction and quality of their ICT statistics at the level of firms through an international“Partnership on Measuring ICT for Development”. These data and the ensuing analysis onmeasuring the economic impact of ICT use aim to provide policymakers with better tools todesign, monitor and evaluate their ICT strategies.
Information and communication technologies have received particular attention in Thailandas enablers of economic and social development. In the context of the national ICT plan, theNSO has collected a large amount of data on ICT use through its annual ICT surveys of thebusiness sector, ICT household surveys and surveys of specific industries such asmanufacturing and services.
This report shows a detailed analysis of trends in ICT use by the Thai business sector by lookingin particular at the use of computers, the Internet and the web. This is done against thebackground of a continuous increase in the proportion of businesses using ICTs in Thailand. Thestudy also reviews the specialized literature estimating the productivity impact of ICT use at thefirm level in a number of developed countries. It then presents the results of the empiricalanalysis measuring the impact of ICT use on productivity in manufacturing firms, both at ageneral level and also by geographical region, industry branch, firm age and size.
The results indicate that the use of basic ICTs such as computers is important to firmproductivity, particularly in countries where a significant proportion of businesses are still notusing computers. The analysis also finds that, in addition to computer presence, Internet use andweb presence are also reflected in higher labour productivity. The study shows that small andnewly founded manufacturing businesses, especially the ones located in the north and north-eastof the country, should receive more support both in terms of facilitating their access to ICTs andin terms of information campaigns on how ICTs can help to increase productivity, improve thequality of products and better respond to demand. Technical information on how businessesimplement ICT solutions can provide additional guidance to set industry-specific ICT strategies.
