The Comparison Of The Strength And Weakness, And The Analysis Of The Opportunities And Threats Between China And Thailand's Development Of Automotive Industry

In the first period of the 21st century, the automotive markets of the EastAsian region including India, China and Southeast Asian countries such asThailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, are expected to see thestrongest growth in the world and also expected to have the great potential todevelop as a world's new car production base. At present, China's andThailand's automotive industries are most developed in the region. The twocountries are trying hard to develop as one of the world car production bases.This paper is intended to make a comparative analysis between China'sand Thailand's automotive industries in terms of the strength and weakness,and the opportunities and threats under the changes of the development of theglobal automotive industry through the approach of the SWOT analysis. Thepaper shows that the development of China's automotive industry has thestrength in the areas of enormous market and low costs of labor, etc., whilethe problems such as the fragmented distribution and the excessive number ofthe manufacturers and suppliers of cars and parts and components representits weakness;Thailand's automotive industry not only has the ASEANcountries as its supporting potential market, but also has the strength in termsof the liberalized policies of investment and the industry cluster, etc., whilethe lack of skilled labors and the undeveloped IT industry are its mainweakness. The paper also shows that China and Thailand has theopportunities to enter the global outsourcing network and become thepotential targets of developed countries' transfer of some of automotivecomponents' production due to their large markets allowing their automotiveindustry to achieve the economy of scale and reduce the production costs;however, the two countries' automotive industries are to face the difficultiesin trying to meet the standard of the Lean Production and to supply modularcomponents required by car manufacturers due to their automotive industries'weakness.The paper concludes that both of China's and Thailand's automotiveindustries have strength and opportunities for development, which are muchlikely to lead them to become competitors. In addition, due to China's andThailand's recent policy to encourage the domestic consumption andproduction of small cars, it can be predicted that the two countries'automotive industries will be in competition in the near future. Theautomotive industry is of great importance for both of the countries'economics' development, the measures from the two countries to cope withthis problem are urgently required.