The AEC road freight transportation hub potential of Thailand

Due to Thailand's strategic geographical location at the center of Mainland ASEAN, several prospects of Thailand becoming the logistics hub of ASEAN in the realization of ASEAN Economic Integration in 2015 have been broadly discussed. Both Thai government and private sectors have been very active in promoting Thailand to be the logistics hub of ASEAN. In Thailand, Road freight transport is the dominant mode of transport with approximately 82.6% of all logistics activities. This paper analyzes Thailand's potential to be the road freight hub by using Porter's Diamond Model Analysis. The Porter's Diamond Model provides the perspective of factor condition, demand condition, strategy, structure, and rivalry, Related and supporting industries, as well as chance and government. The information in this paper is obtained mainly from in-depth interviews with government agencies; private logistics services providers; and logistics expert. Moreover, the authors also obtained information based on statistics from government publications and electronic papers. The authors analyzed the information of Thailand's potential to be the road freight hub of ASEAN and provide policy recommendations to related organizations and government agencies.