Finance Ministry to ease private investment in infrastructure
The Finance Ministry wants to make it much easier for private firms to invest in infrastructure projects.
Current law requires projects worth Bt1 billion and up to be approved by the Cabinet. The procedure is time-consuming and inconvenient for private companies, Deputy Finance Minister Viroon Tejapaibul said yesterday.
“I would like to raise the threshold to between Bt3 billion and Bt5 billion to make it easier for private firms to invest in public infrastructure projects,” he said.
He made the remark on the sidelines of the International Conference on Asean Regional Cooperation: Mega-Infrastructure Investment in Asia amid Global Uncertainties, jointly hosted by the Fiscal Policy Research Institute and its partners.
The Finance Ministry is in the process of making changes to laws related to public-private partnerships. To promote private participation in infrastructure investment in small projects, the threshold for Cabinet scrutiny should be raised, maybe as high as Bt5 billion, he said.
The previous government set the threshold at Bt1 billion as part of the effort to minimise corruption.
Naoyuki Yoshino, professor of economics at Keio University in Tokyo, suggested at the conference that Thailand and other Asean members needed to develop more financial products that could draw investment from Japan. His country has well-developed long-term funds such as pension and insurance funds, but there are few financial products available in Asean for them to invest in, he said.
He also suggested that Asean should learn from the mistakes of the Japanese government such as wasteful investment in highways or bridges that are little utilised. The solution is to encourage the private sector to participate in infrastructure projects, as such firms are keen on seeing returns on their investment.
Porametee Vimolsiri, deputy secretary-general of the National Economic and Social Development Board, said the government had several roads, railways and ports linking with other Asean countries in the pipeline for development.
He said Thailand needed to invest about Bt2.3 trillion in infrastructure projects in the next five years plus Bt350 billion for flood prevention.
