The research problem under consideration is about Thailand’s capability of attaining a comparative advantage in the international rice market, since there is speculation of a growth in the consumption of rice in the global market.

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Defining the Research Problem

The global researches being conducted on the future of commodities consumption reveal that one of the commodities whose consumption is assumed to be on the rise is ‘rice’. It has also been speculated that the expected growth in rice consumption, and subsequently a rise in its demand, would be up to 2.7%. In the similar context, there would be definite advantages for the countries that have major contributions towards the exports of this crop. Thailand, despite being ranked as the 6th largest global producer of rice, is ranked as the world’s largest exporter of rise (Rice today, 2006). Comparative advantage is a term used to define the ‘advantage’ that a country has over the others in terms of its efficacy in producing a particular product, and Thailand definitely has a comparative advantage when referred to rice crops, as visible from the fact that despite being the 6th largest producer, it is ranked as the largest rice exporter (Pugel, 2004). Holding such a comparative advantage, the question arising, as addressed in this research, is that how Thailand can take most advantage out of this rising demand position.

Research Methodology

For developing a conclusion on how Thailand can develop a comparative advantage based on the projected rise in consumption of rice globally, both primary research and secondary researches have been used. Secondary research would constitute literature review in the next section, and primary research would be discussed in the section posterior to that.

For secondary research, various literatures available on the given topics such as articles, news updates, analytics, and other text has been referred, while for primary research, unstructured and open ended questions have been prepared and respondents where individuals matching the profile of a rice importer and those individuals who coordinate rice export activities being in export promotion bureau or have clearing-and-forwarding establishments. Unstructured interviews have been chosen as primary research mechanism because (1) it gives the respondent the freedom to express their opinion, rather than restricting them to the pre-defined answers (2) even with lesser number of respondents, it gives a deeper insight involving opinions and statistics (3) often this form gives clues for research that cannot be determined via reviews and primary research.