Thailand's prime minister seeks tax breaks for Thai products

Saturday January 08, 2005

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) Thailand needs tax breaks for its exports more than financial assistance as it recovers from the impact of the Asian tsunami, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinwatra said Saturday.

During his weekly radio address, Thaksin said he had met with British and Norwegian officials, who offered relief aid for victims of the disaster and help for restoration work.

``I told them that we do not need help in the form of financial assistance. Instead, we need technical assistance, and that British and some EU nations, which earlier revoked our GSP status, should give it back us,'' he said.

GSP the Generalized System of Preferences provides duty-free or reduced-duty access to foreign markets.

``I told them that by resuming GSP, we then can rebuild our economy. When we send more prawns to the EU market, then our shrimp farmers will re-emerge from bankruptcy,'' he said.

Thaksin said some foreign officials he did not identify who agreed to return GSP status to Thailand immediately.

He also said Thailand plans to build a tsunami museum with contributions from Sweden, which lost a large number of its nationals when the walls of water battered prime tourist resorts.

(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

So let me get this straight, the Thai people that have had their homes and businesses wiped from the face of the earth, the simple fisherman who have lost their boats, the parents who are missing their children, the mass of people who have lost their jobs, they do not need help. What would serve them best is not new homes, new boats, reopened small businesses, no what they desperately need are most favored trading terms with Europe so that big business can effectively utilize the low labor costs here to make a killing in foreign markets. Sometimes it really gets to be too much.

Once a "business " man, always a "business" man.

A good CEO covers his back with the right IOU's . Especially if this costs him nothing.

let see, most hard-hit area tourist area, not and agriculture, the agriculture sector are just fine inland, so what does tax breaks for its exports got anything to do with it.