The 'New Thailand': Policies After The Flood

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GUEST COLUMN

The 'new Thailand': Policies after the flood

Chodechai Suwanaporn

"We are ready to invest any amount of money to ensure this disaster doesn't happen again," said Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra in the lead-up to the launch of the "Government's Rehabilitation Three-Stage-Plan".

At this stage, we all hope that, after the flood crisis is over, the country can reinvigorate its tarnished image as the premier investment destination in Southeast Asia. The Thai government will have to take the leading role in providing remedies and rehabilitation in order to restore people's confidence domestically and internationally. Most recently, the government has come up with a strategic plan for national reconstruction, which can be separated into three parallel phases: rescue, restore and rebuild.

In the immediate phase, "rescue" efforts are to be completed within two months. The Flood Relief Operation Centre (FROC) was tasked with providing emergency relief, receiving requests for assistance addressing the needs of victims, receiving donations, distributing relief assistance, providing medical care and temporary shelters, and managing the crisis.

In the short-term phase - "restoration" efforts are to be completed within a year. The government aims to assist in the early restoration of damaged infrastructure and public service systems so that they are operational again, as well as ensuring policy support and financial assistance to affected people.

However, I believe the Thai public, as well as foreign investors, are most concerned about the medium- to long-term solutions to the flood problems that Thailand has been facing in recent years, with more damaging effects on the Thai economy and infrastructure.

As a long-term phase, the government promises to implement needed actions to "rebuild" confidence, regain trust and restore the country's prosperity and stability. Two committees have been established, namely the Strategic Formulation Committee for Reconstruction and Future Development (SCRF), and the Strategic Formulation Committee for Water Resources Management (SCWRM). They aim to jointly set the country's future, build confidence, regain trust and restore prosperity and stability in the long-term in a manner that is sustainable and systematic. The two committees will work on rehabilitation and building the country's future, and putting into place a national water resources management system, respectively.

I think that most people would agree on the severity of the flood problem in Thailand and the need to find innovative solutions. While the government has taken the right first steps towards addressing this problem, the critical next steps will surely be more difficult to achieve. They involve something that, unfortunately, Thailand has not really been successful at: policy formulation and implementation.

We hope that the government will systematically address the issue of "flood prevention", looking at international experience (possibly with international expertise) on whether Thailand needs additional dams to hold back water; new reservoirs to store water; levees and embankments to prevent water from overflowing; reforestation to increase water interception; land-use zoning to restrict development to uses unaffected by flooding; dredging to make channels deeper to hold more water, and straightening channels to increase the speed of water flow.

These initiatives and programmes will certainly demand large investment in infrastructure in the coming years. In the past decade since the 1997 financial crisis, the public sector (and the private sector) in Thailand has been "under-invested in", with public investment totaling merely 5-6 per cent of GDP compared to, prior to the 1997 financial crisis, more than 10 per cent of GDP. New infrastructure needed for water management should take priority in the coming years.

In addition to hard engineering solutions, we also need to establish an efficient, effective and transparent coordination mechanism in public governance. There are now over 15 departments and agencies responsible for water management and flood-related issues. Moreover, people saw the lack of coordination and cooperation between central government and local administration in Bangkok, at least in the early stage of the flood crisis.

Building effective flood prevention and an early warning system requires proper and timely information sharing and institutional cooperation. Indeed, the public sector will need to reorganise its administrative structure to meet the need for better water management and flood prevention in the context of the "New Thailand".

Foreign investors will not be confident in Thailand unless they can see well-coordinated and functioning administrative systems in place to deal with flood-related issues. The government will have difficult tasks in the years ahead in managing to achieve both the "hard" engineering solutions as well as the "soft" well-coordinated administrative systems. One cannot stand alone without the other.

Finally, I would urge that the first committee should look beyond flood issues and focus on how to promote Thailand's competitiveness and productivity. Restructuring of our waterways should be done with a view not just to prevent future floods, but to improve the irrigation system and logistical network as well.

What we need now is the vision to steer the country forward and practical action plans to achieve the goals brought by this vision. The flood crisis has been an expensive lesson for Thailand, with significant losses to the domestic economy. Looking ahead, with so many committees on various problematic issues created over recent years, let us really hope that these two committees will not be drained out to the Gulf of Thailand like the flood water of today!

Dr Chodechai Suwanaporn is executive vice-president, economics and energy policy, PTT Public Company Limited. Chodechai.energyfact [at] gmail.com.

-- The Nation 2011-11-29

[elgato]

"We are ready to invest any amount of money to ensure this disaster doesn't happen again," said Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra

And where is this money coming from?

[Soutpeel]

The 'new Thailand': Policies after the flood

Policy # 1 - Get big brother back into Thailand

Policy # 2 - Get big brother back into Thailand

Policy # 3- See polices #1 & #2

[Briggsy]

Extremely vague policy statement with no opportunity for aggressive questioning from the Press. (Not that the Press here do aggressive questioning)

[jalansanitwong]

Instead of calling it New Thailand...why not call it New Siam. Its well overdue they revert to this countries original name.' Thailand' means prostitution , wife buying,corruption and drugs to most people outside LOS. I am surprised PM Yingluck didnt use the word 'hub'. LOL

[noitom]

Was this written by the "Guest Columnist?" It wasn't clear that he/she was writing this or transcribing PM Yingluck's speech or something. Looks like they/she are designating two more committees. More committees is not what Thailand needs. Even worse, you put in the title "Strategic" - Two new strategic committees to determine action points. Oh Boy! You put "strategic" into the title of anything in Thailand and it's a ticket to Knowhere's Ville. We are going into the business of printing scorecards. Get your scorecard and comic books here! Can't tell the players without a scorecard.

[thaiphoon]

1 nonsense post has been removed.

[lannarebirth]

"We are ready to invest any amount of money to ensure this disaster doesn't happen again," said Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra

And where is this money coming from?

I can answer that. They're going to borrow it. They're going to saddle the country with more debt, which is the globalist bankers game, which Thaksin has always been a willing participant. Where specifically is it going to would be a more relavant question I think.

[drdoom6996]

The 'new Thailand': Policies after the flood

Policy # 1 - Get big brother back into Thailand

Policy # 2 - Get big brother back into Thailand

Policy # 3- See polices #1 & #2

Fully and completely agree.

[sangis49]

who is this big brother that you speak of and the real question is who is spending the so called tax payers money ? on what clean up

[who]

"We are ready to invest any amount of money to ensure this disaster doesn't happen again," said Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra

And where is this money coming from?

---- From Taxes and borrowing. Just like every other gov't in the world ! ----

[Chupup]

And i thought i would be reading somthing NEW,but just more of the Same Old Same Old all Talk & no Walk same as the Election promises, i agree wit Southpeel, spot on

[ResX]

Some leaders tend to believe that no harm to the economics for excessive borrowing. Too bad but it is real....

[lannarebirth]

"New Thailand" is at least a 10 year old campaign. This comes straight from the original Thaksinomics handbook. They didn't even update the terminology.