Bid to smooth path to start a business

Somkid Jatusripitak, the deputy prime minister in charge of the economy, said the economic ministers met with representatives of the private sector yesterday and these were the first of four issues they agreed to tackle.

"The relevant ministries will take two weeks to discuss [the matter] further with the private sector before they come up with solutions, which will be compiled and presented to the prime minister a month later," around November, he said.

He said the measures that did not require amendments to the law, which make up the majority of the issues, would be tackled first. Those that require changes to the law will require more time to fix, said Somkid, who expects things to get done at a fast pace since the progress reports will now be made directly to the prime minister.

"Starting up a new business can be done in one day if it does not involve many ministries. So this process and the running around will have been reduced. It would be great if we could reduce the time to three or four days, but this would require agreement from all the relevant ministries, [so] we will have to see what can be done realistically," Somkid said.

It currently takes just over 27 days on average to start a business in Thailand, according to World Bank statistics. The Kingdom is currently ranked at No 26 out of 189 countries on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index. Thailand was ranked 28 in 2014, while Singapore is currently in the No 1 spot and Malaysia is ranked at 18.

"The World Bank and OPDC [the Office of the Public Sector Development Commission] have given us homework, which was shown to both the public and the private sectors today, so we already have a list of what needs to be improved. The private-sector people have given us their ideas, which received a good response from the ministries," Somkid said.

Meanwhile, the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce (UTCC) yesterday announced the results of its latest survey, which indicate that most Thais believe the government’s economic stimulation policies will help promote stronger economic growth for the country. It also found that most respondents were buoyed by the Village Fund project.

The poll, which surveyed 1,200 people and 600 enterprises, found that most of the respondents foresaw that gross domestic product would grow by 3 per cent this year under the government’s economic stimulus projects.

However, if some of the projects could come into effect this year, the economy could grow by only 2.1-2.9 percent. Next year, after the economic promotion package takes effect, GDP should grow by more than 3 per cent, said Thanavath Phonvichai, director of the UTCC’s Economic and Business Forecasting Centre.

According to the survey, which took place between September 9 and 13, 67 per cent of respondents said they were satisfied with the government’s economic stimulus plans, while 32 per cent were quite satisfied, and the remainder were not satisfied at all.

Most of the respondents, accounting for 82 per cent, did not know enough about the economic policies and wanted the government to promote the projects more.

The most popular projects among Thais are the Village Fund, the acceleration of state budget disbursement on small projects valued at less than Bt1 million, and the soft-loan programme for small and medium-sized enterprises.