Thailand

Responding to challenges and existing knowledge gaps facing the cooperative movement, this mapping research seeks to provide exhaustive information on cooperatives worldwide. This is achieved through a process jointly conducted by the ICA and its four regional offices – Cooperatives of the Americas, Cooperatives Europe, ICA Africa, and ICA Asia-Pacific – using a common methodology. Each office collected the input of ICA members present in the countries within its geographic area, by using the same questionnaire, and completing it with relevant national statistics, in order to obtain an accurate picture of the national situation. Mapping out cooperatives in each country provides a more precise picture of the cooperative context at national and regional levels, enhances the movement's visibility, networking, partnerships opportunities, as well as advocacy, and empowers cooperators by providing them tools for positive change.

This webpage presents a snapshot of the research results for Thailand. For more information, you can download the full report and the highlights here.

Cooperatives in Thailand have a rich history and play a prime role in assisting the poor and marginalised. The first cooperative was established in 1916 with the aim to improve the livelihood of small and indebted farmers who were affected by the shift from self-sufficient economy to trade economy. Since then, cooperatives have been playing an important role in agriculture, credit, and services sector. Agriculture-based cooperatives are the largest type and cover almost 10% of the Thai population as members. Agricultural cooperatives experienced high growth and business performance in the Tenth (2007-11) and Eleventh (2012-16) National Economic and Social Development Plan. 

ICA has two members from Thailand.

• Cooperative League of Thailand (CLT)
• Association of Asian Confederation of Credit Unions (ACCU)

In Thailand, the data collected was for the reference year 2018.

ICA members represent 8,130 cooperatives with 11,636,166 members.

Cooperatives in Thailand are present in diverse sectors including agriculture, fisheries, thrift and credit, consumer, services and credit unions.