Trade groups give regime high marks

However, many people are waiting for the government to proceed with reforming the country.
The chairwoman of the Federation of Thai Capital Market Organisations, Voravan Tarapoom, said the government’s performance was satisfactory.
However, Voravan urged the government to pay more attention to the development of the money and capital markets, since it had been doing a good job in supporting the real sector but had yet to provide any tangible support for the financial sector.
“In the next six months the government should appoint someone who has vast knowledge about the capital market to be in charge of the support and development of the money and capital markets, as the development of the financial sector should be nurtured alongside the development of the real sector. They must go together,” she said.
Voravan said the government’s performance in supporting investment in the real sector, such as the special economic zones, deserved a rating of 8 out of 10.
But she gave it only 5 out of 10 for its support of the financial sector because the only positive development in the past 10 months was the Cabinet’s approval of the details and operating plan of merging the Agricultural Futures Exchange of Thailand (AFET) and the Thailand Futures Exchange (TFEX).
The chairman of the Federation of Thai Industries (FTI), Supant Mongkolsuthree, also said the government had shown real attention to managing the country and had passed the performance test.
He said an urgent issue the government should tackle in the next six months was the drop in crop prices by finding ways to help farmers lower their production costs, such as providing support in the procurements of agricultural tools and the means of production.
He said the government also needed to continue with its efforts to encourage small and medium-sized enterprises to register within the tax system while providing them with support in terms of business matchmaking and e-commerce, and helping promote the FTI’s “Product of Thailand” project. “I am satisfied with the governments’ support for private investment, including of IHQs [international headquarters] and ITCs [international trading centres], various reforms in customs and tax regulations, the changes in the BOI [Board of Investment] privileges and the push for special economic zones on the borders,” he said.
“The thing that I most agree with is the government’s ideas to support SMEs in terms of investment, but these plans must be more tangible. The accomplishment that is most tangible for this government so far is the [streamlining] and reduced corruption in the application for plant operating permits,” he added.
Amonthep Chawla, head of research at CIMB Thai Bank, said the government should focus more on speeding up state projects this year to spur private investment and consumer consumption.
As the global economy remains sluggish, the government should use this time to restructure the country’s low-technology and labour-intensive manufacturing. As long as the country relies on low-tech manufacturing, it will not be able to cash in on exports once the global economy recovers, he said.
Amonthep said that the BOI needed to increase incentives for high-technology manufacturing to encourage more investment in the sector.
The president the Stock Exchange of Thailand, Kesara Manchusree, said the government should maintain its non-intervention approach in the financial and the capital markets and continue with its efforts to improve the country’s financial regulations via the process of standardisation.
“The merger of AFET and TFEX is a positive development that [previous governments were] unable to do and the government should keep up with these standardisation efforts,” she said.