Issue07 : 07 July 2014

Trairat Chatkaew, the president of SIPA

One of the fastest growing industries in the country, Thailand’s digital content sector is looking to spread its expertise across ASEAN.

The world is changing at an ever increasing pace. Nowhere is this truer than in the digital content industry. Technology that nowadays appears ground-breaking will become obsolete within a decade.

“In the future, the longest movie will be 15 minutes – [people will watch] very short movies on their mobile phones,” says Trairat Chatkaew, the president of the Software Industry Promotion Agency (SIPA), the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology.

As part of promoting Thailand’s 100 billion baht (US$3 billion) software industry, SIPA is responsible for marketing its digital content industry – animation, games, e-learning and new media. It is a dynamic sector with annual growth of 40% to 50%, according to Chatkaew.

Currently SIPA is focussing its attention on the Asian market, specifically Japan, South Korea and China. “Animation and digital content business in Japan … is fast growing and they really need support and skilled work force in design and innovation,” says Chatkaew. “And of course they realise that Thai people have this skill.”

Japanese companies currently outsource digital content jobs to companies such as Silicon Studio and Twin Synergy Trading in the north of Thailand, but Chatkaew believes there is much room for expansion. “We still have a lack of exchange [for business],” he says. “But now we are working with the DITP to do that for digital content in Japan.”

One project he cites as an example is Northern Digital Craft, a collaboration between SIPA and the Thai Game Software Industry Association in Chiang Mai to train people in digital art and programming specifically targeted for the Japanese market.

A prime example of a Japanese-Thai digital success story is the work of 2Spot Communications – a Thai character design and licensing studio which develops a variety of digital content, such as mobile wallpapers, emoticons and games. One of its most popular characters with teens across Asia is Bloody Bunny. The company has developed more than 20 characters sets, over 1,000 products and more than 3,000 other types of digital content.

2Spot managing director Kris Nalamlieng told Thai national newspaper the Bangkok Post that Japan is the largest game and animation market, second only to the US, but that the cost of production in Japan is high compared to Thailand. Nalamlieng was reported as saying that Thai creators are considered talented and have great potential for artwork and creativity.

Chatkaew, however, sees the future for the Kingdom’s digital content industry as lying beyond acting as an outsource centre for larger Asian economies. His intention is to position the country as the leading light within a unified ASEAN region. This he sees as being achieved by working together with Thailand’s closest neighbours rather than against them.

“I am positioning Thailand as the number one in ASEAN, but we should not be competing, we should be collaborating,” he says. “We have to set a strategy for ASEAN – how can we get the rest of the world to see ASEAN as the hub for new generation software.”

Words by Mark Bibby Jackson