Scholar Warns That 'Kon La Khrueng Plus' Stimulus Falls Short of Full Economic Impact, Recommends Comprehensive System Upgrade

On April 30, Suchart Triphopsakul, a lecturer at Bangkok University's Faculty of Business Creation and Management and ranked among Stanford University's World's Top 2% Scientists in 2025, stated that while the Kon La Khrueng Plus scheme effectively delivers money to people quickly and encourages broad spending, in practice not all funds circulate fully through the real economy. Some money fails to translate into actual purchases or connect with producers and job creation, limiting its economic potential.

The policy also faces structural constraints, particularly its failure to cover modern retail and certain tax-registered businesses—key channels linking small producers to larger markets. This results in many SME and agricultural products not fully benefiting from the measure.

Succhart noted that if money cannot flow throughout the entire system from retail outlets back to upstream producers, economic stimulus will only be partial, not system-wide. For consumers, offering diverse spending options would increase price and quality competition, benefiting people more—especially in areas with limited retail access.

The government could strengthen the policy by integrating technology such as e-Receipt and e-Tax Invoice systems to ensure transparent, verifiable spending and reduce misuse of benefits.

Another approach is designing a Hybrid Quota spending structure allowing use at both small retailers and modern retail in balanced proportions. This would maintain community support objectives while better integrating the economy and expanding market access for Thai products, particularly SMEs and OTOP enterprises.

Future policy development should look beyond immediate spending stimulus to design systems where every baht circulates efficiently through the entire economy—from consumer to retailer to producer—creating sustainable, long-term growth.