PM Yingluck: Infrastructure projects will ready Thailand for AEC

[webfact]

Infrastructure projects will ready Thailand for AEC: PM
Pranee Muenpangvaree
The Nation

Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra

BANGKOK: -- Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said yesterday the government stands ready to go ahead with its Bt2-trillion transportation-infrastructure project as a means to prepare for enhanced Thai-Asean links and liberalised trade with both Asean and non-Asean partners.

Meanwhile, according to the commerce minister, state subsidies for agricultural products will be adjusted to strengthen the sector before the country joins the full Asean economic integration planned for January 1, 2016.

Speaking at a seminar on the "Thai economy's future under the Asean Economic Community (AEC)", Yingluck said the government was ready to move ahead with the transportation project to link Thailand's trade to other Asean countries', and to support small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in each local area.

Both the state and private sectors would join hands to raise the country's competitiveness before the AEC, she said.

The prime minister said liberalised trade would help increase trade opportunities and competition under the Asean+6 arrangement with non-Asean countries China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. In addition, partner countries and blocs like the 28-country European Union and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will cover other markets including the Americas, helping Asean to attract more trade and investment.

Deputy PM and Commerce Minister Niwatthumrong Boonsongpaisan said Thailand was like a gateway for trade, investment and tourism, given its advantages and the Bt2-trillion infrastructure project, with opportunities for expansion of trade and investment after the AEC takes shape.

Thailand needed to be ready to cope with the region's combined 650 million population and Bt72-Bt73 trillion gross domestic product (GDP), he said. Thailand's current GDP totals Bt12 trillion.

Niwatthumrong believes Thai economic growth will expand considerably after the Asean economic integration.

Following the AEC, pledging schemes and other agricultural-product price interventions are expected to lessen, and the government was attempting to make farmers nationwide understand such issues, he said.

Presently, the government is encouraging farmers to cut some growing areas and turn to sugar cane, which is expected to fetch high prices. Now, about one million rai of growing areas for crops, including rice, have been reduced.


-- The Nation 2013-10-29

[Sunderland]

A load of gas in that report.

[Ricardo]

Does ASEAN really want a high-speed passenger-railway to Uttaradit ?

And given the government's previous success, in forecasting world rice-prices, does it make sense to rely on their forecasts for sugar cane ?

And, given that Thaksin has said that rice-price intervention should continue for several years, has the government started thinking for itself instead, when it says pledging-schemes & agricultural-intervention "are expected to lessen" and that "state subsidies will be adjusted" ? What will the loyal voters want ?

[Thait Spot]

I bet only a very small percentage of the projects will be completed.

Even if the rail projects were completed, they don't go anywhere near any other nations.

Remember that the government borrowed 350B 2 years ago and spent a paltry 10B

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[soi41]

A new day, a new graph, a new vision.

But the same old mantra: Give us the money, give us the money........

[chooka]

Are you sure ours isn't over there, it is a bigger red dot.

[Tatsujin]

<shakes head in amusement and disappointment>

[BwindiBoy]

"Um, this wall art is interesting. I wonder what on Earth it is meant to be...some kind of abstract art, I think. I'll put my hand on this red sun and pretend I know what EU stands for... Oh, I've just realised what this is; the blue bits are the seas of the world... me good. Me first Thai lady to unnerstan a map!" :-)

[Ricardo]

No, the blue bits show the country of Atlantis, which must surely be on PM-Yingluck's To-Visit-Soon list ?

[upena]

Too bad the Thai Government hasn't prepared the Thai people for AEC

[gemini81]

Too bad the Thai Government hasn't prepared the Thai people for AEC

Most haven't even heard of it for crying out loud! If you were a neighboring country with an itch for power, this would be the easiest place to takeover. If you're a competitor, one of the easiest to outsmart. The future looks a little grim for this place, as far as being the Thailand or Siam of old, to maintain and carry on while the rest of the world passes it by.

[borisloosebrain]

Yingluck if you sign the TPP you are a bigger fool than i'd thought and you will have signed away Thailands sovereignty to a bunch US corporations.

[bangon04]

Too bad the Thai Government hasn't prepared the Thai people for AEC

Of course they have. Every day there is a 10 minute propaganda cartoon on Thai TV with cutesy little characters in national costumes, explaining how different the other people are from Thais.

As for the systemic protectionism, not sure about that - maybe we should just stall a bit longer on that, and the xenophobia, well if we take that out of the education curriculum well we will have to find something to replace it.. English lessons? Never.

Ask a Chulalonghorn student of international politics and relations how many members of Asean they can name....

[bigbamboo]

The only problem is that all these countries she mentions will be thinking how they too will move forward and take advantage of all these opportunities.

And most of them have qualified professionals in government appointed on merit.

[Thai at Heart]

A load of gas in that report.

Indeed, about 50 stories, all of which would be worthy of an article themselves.

No 1. How on earth are they going to complete all of these infrastructure projects in 2 years? Does this include the trains? 2026 might be possible.

No. 2. I am glad to see that they are going to explain to the farmers that their subsidies will have to go. How can they slip that little caveat into the bottom of a story about Asean?

[Thai at Heart]

Too bad the Thai Government hasn't prepared the Thai people for AEC

Of course they have. Every day there is a 10 minute propaganda cartoon on Thai TV with cutesy little characters in national costumes, explaining how different the other people are from Thais.

As for the systemic protectionism, not sure about that - maybe we should just stall a bit longer on that, and the xenophobia, well if we take that out of the education curriculum well we will have to find something to replace it.. English lessons? Never.

Ask a Chulalonghorn student of international politics and relations how many members of Asean they can name....

The strategy is clear. Be at the front of any significant investment projects that Mainland China has for Asean and bend over accomodatingly to allow the PRC access to whatever they can.

I am not sure quite what long term benefits that is going to bring the majority of Thai's but I am sure it will make an awful lot of local and national politicians extremely rich.

Comrades. The colonisation continues.

[rubl]

Infrastructure? What about improvements in Education?

[JoeThePoster]

I knew it! The world IS flat.

[Songhua]

PM points at map: 'I've been here .... and here ... oh, and here and .....'

[Ricardo]

<snip for brevity>

Where is the 2 trillion to come from? Well :

Commercial banks have sufficient liquidity to finance the government's 2-trillion-baht borrowing plan for infrastructure development, says Bank of Thailand governor Prasarn Trairatvorakul.

So it looks like the Thai banks (Thai people) are going to be expected (ordered) to lend the money.

Just like the rice-scam lending, where the government increases the borrowing-limits for a government-backed bank, so that unaffordable spending-plans can continue, and the bank squeals but does as it is told !

What will Moody's make, of this murky lending, backed solely by the government's own rapidly-eroding credibility ?

But I guess it works for farang countries, so why not here too ?

[outsider]

"Infrastructure projects will ready Thailand for AEC"... Just as how the anti-flooding projects will ready Thailand for the next round of floods...

[metisdead]

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