The Digital Economy and Society (DES) Ministry expects digital GDP this year to expand by 5.7% year-on-year, 2.2 times higher than the estimated Thai GDP, attributed to nudging the public sector towards digital government and promoting investment in cloud services and data centres.
The value of the digital economy is expected to be 4.44 trillion baht this year, indicating the importance of the sector, according to the ministry.
The National Economic and Social Development Council estimates Thai GDP expansion at 2.6% this year.
Private digital investment is expected to grow 2.8% year-on-year, while government digital investment is projected to expand by 4.5%. Government investment expanded from a negative base the previous year.
Private consumption in the digital industry is targeted to expand by 5.6%, higher than the estimate for national consumption growth this year of 4.8%.
Government consumption of digital products is expected to expand by 11.4% based on accelerated budget disbursement.
The value of digital industry exports of goods and services in 2024 is expected to expand by 17.2% from 5.1% the previous year, while the country's exports of goods and services are estimated to grow by 6.1% from 2.1% the previous year.
Imports of digital goods and services are expected to expand by 9.0%, up from 3% in 2023, according to the DES Ministry.
The ministry said the digital industry has high potential to generate foreign revenue. However, because Thailand relies on digital goods, both raw materials and final products, as well as digital media content from abroad, when exports expand, imports will also increase, noted the agency.
For the manufacturing sector, the report said digital GDP will expand by 5.71% this year, up from 2.75% in 2023, in line with production expansion in all industrial categories.
The top two industries with the highest growth are digital content at 12.6% and telecom at 10%.
Roughly 80% of digital GDP growth is attributed to the expansion of the telecom industry, up 1.90%, the digital service industry, rising 1.36%, and the hardware industry, gaining 1.27%.
DES Minister Prasert Jantararuangtong said the digital GDP figures were provided by the Office of National Digital Economy and Society Commission.
He said the government's investment promotion and Cloud First policy have led foreign tech giants such as Google and Microsoft to invest more than 100 billion baht in artificial intelligence and data centres this year in Thailand.
"Two more major tech companies are expected to invest next year with an investment of no less than 100 billion baht," said Mr Prasert.