PACIFIC RIM TRADE : Profiles : Millions of Engines Rev Up the Asian Economy : To start a family. To start a business. To travel. Such goals help make individual workers productive. : SOMCHAI KOKRATAE, 37, <i> Bangkok dockworker </i>

Somchai Kokratae, a day laborer at Bangkok’s main port, wonders when or whether Thailand’s growing prosperity will begin to trickle down.

Kokratae lives in one of the slums that surround the city, and each dawn he seeks work at the Klong Toey wharves.

When there is work, he is paid up to $4 an hour, enough for Kokratae and his wife to subsist if no medical emergencies arise.

Kokratae, 37, helps load Thailand’s export goods onto ships from other parts of Asia, Europe and the United States.

But while the country’s foreign trade is expanding, Kokratae complains that endemic corruption in the military-dominated shipping industry is siphoning off profits for a privileged elite, who in turn allow common workers to fend for themselves.

He says that he sometimes handles toxic chemicals while loading or unloading carriers and that few employers provide worker’s compensation or health insurance for the injured.

On nights when he is not working, Kokratae seeks refuge in the makeshift bars whose lights twinkle throughout the Bangkok slums.

Over “Mekong Cokes,” mixed with a cheap, local booze, Kokratae talks about escaping from the wharves, about saving enough to someday open a small shop outside the city.

And then he slips back to his home to rest before returning to the docks.