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The International Journal of the Royal Society of Thailand
Volume XII, 2020

centers already fetched high prices, averaging as much as 600,000 Baht per rai
in today's money (adjusted for general inflation), seventy times more than
farm land and orchards with registered private title valued at an average of

around 8,000 Baht in today's money. Since 1960 the area of land registered to
4
private owners has increased five-fold or more. Large profits have been made
from registration of formerly unregistered land and from conversion of registered
farm land into residential and commercial use. The price of farm land around
towns and cities has acquired a speculative premium.

Demand for housing increased as new generations separated from the
household. The 1960 census enumerated 4.6 million households with an
average of 5.7 people per household. By 2018, the number of households had
5
increased five-fold to over 20 million with an average of three people per
household. The reduction in household size has most likely not ended yet.
Further increases in the number requiring homes in and around cities have to be
expected while occupation of homes in more remote rural areas may decline.

Growth of industry and service centers

In 1960, just over half of national income was generated in services such as
transport and wholesale and retail trade (see Table 1). Agriculture was the
largest source of exports and domestic trade. Manufacturing activities, such as
agri-processing and production of textiles and consumer goods, generated only
half as much income as agriculture. By 2020, the share of agriculture in national
6

3 The median price of registered farm land may have increased from under 1,000 Baht per rai
to an average of over 150,000 Baht per rai – up to 200 fold, but the price of urban land increased
less as towns and cities expanded by taking over surrounding farm land and orchards. So far
as GDP is concerned the official figure increased more than 250 fold to over 16 trillion Baht in
2018 from around 60 billion Baht in 1960 (see Table 1) but the 1960 figure was certainly
under-estimated by today's standards as a large part of the domestic product was consumed by
the producers or exchanged informally.
4 Statistical Yearbook of Thailand, 1964 Table 20 with a ten-fold adjustment for erosion in the value
of money between 1960 and the present day.
5 Statistical Yearbook of Thailand 1964, table 18.
6 Income from agriculture was most likely under-estimated as rural communities in many parts
of the country still maintained a high level of self-sufficiency. See Dan Usher, ‘The Thai National
Income at United Kingdom Prices’, Bulletin of the Oxford University Institute of Statistics (1963).

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