This review offers a comprehensive overview of Thailand’s capital markets and sets out policy recommendations aimed at enhancing their performance across six key areas. The findings draw on extensive analysis using OECD databases and inputs from the Securities and Exchange Commission of Thailand and other market participants. The policy recommendations have been shaped through consultations with a broad range of market participants, including Thai government agencies, business and industry groups, market infrastructure providers, brokers, legal and financial advisors, and non-financial companies.
The review follows from a request by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Thailand and is part of a Japanese government-financed programme to support the development of Asian capital markets.
This review is part of the OECD Capital Market Series, which informs policy discussions on how capital markets can serve their important role of channelling financial resources from households to productive investments in the real economy.
It is structured as follows: Chapter 1 provides an assessment of six different capital market areas and associated policy recommendations; Chapter 2 contains an overview of the Thai economy and corporate sector; Chapters 3-5 offer a comprehensive empirical characterisation of the Thai capital markets, including public equity (Chapter 3), corporate bonds including sustainable bonds (Chapter 4) and private capital (Chapter 5).
A detailed description of data sources and the methodology for data collection and analysis are provided in the Annex. For qualitative inputs, the OECD Secretariat gratefully acknowledges the contribution of the organisations and individuals who have offered their time to consultations in preparation of this review.
The report has been developed by the Capital Markets and Financial Institutional Division of the OECD Directorate for Financial and Enterprise Affairs. It was prepared by Yun Tang with Carl Lekvall, Gülgün Arikan, Kyo Maruyama, Sebastian Abudoj and Juan Viquez, under the supervision of Alejandra Medina, Head of the Financial Economics Unit, and Serdar Çelik, Head of Division. Prim Budsaratragoon provided research support during her internship.
On 18 June 2024, the OECD Council decided to open accession discussions with Thailand. The Roadmap for the OECD Accession Process of Thailand was adopted on 10 July 2024. In accordance with the Roadmap, Thailand will undergo in-depth reviews by the OECD technical committees listed in the Roadmap. This report is separate from Thailand’s accession process and does not prejudge the recommendations that may be suggested in the process.