Meet hears hurdles to growth

Unless action is taken to resolve these brakes on development, the country will also lose competitiveness to other Asean countries, in particular to Myanmar, which is expected to be one of the fastest-emerging regional economies in the next five years, according to panellists at the annual symposium of the International Institute for Asia Pacific Studies (INSAPS) on “Thailand’s future in Asia-Pacific Dynamism”.

   They shared the view that the country needed to reform its rules and regulations related to investment, as well as promote closer cooperation among the public and private sectors in order to make the regulations clear-cut and modern, and thus attract further foreign investment and strengthen competitiveness among Thai businesses.

   Pornsilp Patcharintanakul, vice chairman of the Thai Chamber of Commerce, told the seminar that Thailand needed to modernise its laws and regulations, in particular those related to business, in order to facilitate economic growth on a par with the most impressive performers in Asean.

   He said Myanmar had drawn much foreign investment across all sectors since embarking on the process of political and economic reform, and would soon be granted export privileges from western countries under the generalised system of preferences.

   A country’s rules and regulations for doing business are a crucial area that investors pay great attention to. Thailand should, therefore, not only reform its rules to facilitate investment, but also study the rules and regulations of other Asean countries so as to reap benefits from the upcoming seamless market under the Asean Economic Community in 2015, Pornsilp said.

   Thai businesses and the government should also learn to strengthen all areas of development, in particular information and other technology, logistics, the finance system, laws and human-resources development, he added.

   Kavi Chongkittavorn, columnist at The Nation, said Myanmar was already developing rapidly due to its clear rules and regulations. 

   For instance, on the issue relate to the United States and China, Myanmar has set its clear standing point, while Thai government has changed our status day-by-day.

   Narongchai Akrasanee, chairman of the INSAPS board, said Thailand faced difficulty when it came to economic restructuring as it was too reliant on exports and had too many inflexible rules.

   “The Thai industrial sector has not been able to develop due to high concern about the environment and opposition [to development] via a high standard of rules and laws, while creativity has been limited. Thailand is stuck in the second sphere, hanging on as a developing nation and not finding it easy to move forward to developed-country status,” he said.

   To solve the problem, Narongchai said the country needed to increase its overseas investment, in particular in neighbouring countries and elsewhere in the Greater Mekong Sub-region, where there is strong growth and a great opportunity to attract foreign investment.

  Suthad Setboonsarng, former Thailand Trade Representative, told the seminar that Thailand could not move forward on its own in a highly competitive environment.

    The Kingdom should strengthen cooperation with Asean and other Asia-Pacific nations, so that the country can learn to modernise its rules and laws to support the growth of inward investment, as well as encourage outbound investment, he said.

Suvit Maesincee, director of the Sasin Institute for Global Affairs, said the nation had been trapped in a lost decade due to its own internal conflict and a slowness to undertake the reform that would spur economic growth.

   “Thailand has been unable to attract [sufficient] new foreign investment, due to the low level of its technology and low number of scientists available to support new investment. Thailand could be [seen as] a falling state, as its competitiveness in many areas has fallen in the past decade,” he said. To solve the problem, Suvit said the country needed to rebuild its economic structure by increasing cooperation among the public and private sectors, and also with the people.