Varakorn Samkoset, rector of Dhurakijbandit University, said the country urgently needed to pay more attention to human development to enable people to cope better with international uncertainty.

The government, he said, will need to find a way to measure the national economic condition more accurately.

The use of GDP figures did not always accurately reflect the economic success people were enjoying, Mr Varakorn said.

Paiboon Wattanasiritham, chairman of the Centre for the Promotion of National Strength on Moral Ethics and Values, said His Majesty the King's self-sufficiency economic policy was an answer as Thailand faced a looming economic crunch.

He vehemently disagreed with a government idea that economic success could bring more happiness to society.

Instead of focusing on gross domestic product, the government should devise a tool to measure the happiness of the people. This method has been used by Bhutan, he said.

Somkid Jatusripitak, caretaker deputy prime minister and commerce minister, conceded that the government would need to place more emphasis on human development to enable the country to compete with other countries.

The government's ability to develop its people to enable them to attain equality, socially and economically, would be the key to long-term national economic development, he said.

The government will need to promote domestic consumption to enable the economy to be less dependent on exports, he said.

Supachai Panitchpakdi, secretary-general of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad), warned the government to be more careful in entering free trade agreements with developed countries to prevent undesired impact on the economy.

Mr Supachai said he was very concerned that the government's FTA policy could put the country at a disadvantage if the agreements were not carefully studied beforehand.

He said he was not saying FTAs were good or bad, but he believed agreements should be limited to countries in the same region because their economies were more or less the same size as Thailand's and the agreements were more likely to be mutually beneficial.