Thailand has the products that chinese wants,especially the rice. Chinese people eat rice in their daily life and the demand of rice in china is getting higher and higher, when our Laos is planning to grow the rice and sell it to china and then lao farmers can become the richest man in the country.
Thailand has been trading with countries around the world for decades and even centuries. Accordingly, they have learned to create products that other nations want. They have developed universities to train workers with competitive skills in business and trade for several decades, while Laos has just begun to learn such skills. Further, every years they have many young Thai with PhD and Engineering degrees from Western and other developed Asian countries and who come back to Thailand.
