City planning law in special economic zones to take a year

[Lite Beer]

City planning law in special economic zones to take a year
By Digital Content

CHIANG RAI, Nov 22 -- Interior Minister Gen Anupong Paochinda said Saturday that his ministry is accelerating consideration of a new city planning law for five special economic zones in Thailand’s border areas and it would take about a year for the new law to complete.

He told participants attending the 32nd seminar of chambers of commerce from nationwide, held in the northernmost province of Chiang Rai, that Thailand has an advantage of strategic location in the region and should use this benefit in developing logistics for land, sea and air transportation.

But problems exist for the development of basic infrastructures, especially city planning, as it does not specify clearly on areas of development in the country.

However, the Interior Ministry is speeding up approving city planning in the five special economic zones and it is expected to complete in about a year to cater to the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), due to be implemented by end-2015, said Gen Anupong, adding that he is optimistic that the government-sponsored project would help boost the economy along the border.

The five special economic zones are Tak’s Mae Sot district bordering Myanmar, Sa Kaeo’s Aranyaprathet district and Trat’s Khlong Yai district, both bordering Cambodia, as well as in Mukdahan province bordering Laos and Songkhla’s Sa Dao district bordering Malaysia.

Gen Anupong also told participants at the seminar that his ministry is prepared to help solve problems for private businesses to enable them to become more competitive as the AEC is approaching.

He said the government has mapped out plans to construct several transportation routes which would connect ASEAN member nations and that he is ready to listen to the opinions from the private sector. (MCOT online news)

-- TNA 2014-11-22

[marcusd]

So how are they going to help businesses prepare? Actually give them work ethics and staff who actually know what to do and maybe just MAY BE abide by the existing FREE TRADE agreements and the WTA in place already... I do not think so.... more garbage spewing forth like a volcano in eruption.

[Chris Lawrence]

Brilliant idea, but......

[NeverSure]

They should just use the vacant space that will spring up as foreign companies desert the sinking ship.

[Lite Beer]

Interior Minister requests all provincial governors to be ready for AEC

BANGKOK, 22 November 2014 (NNT) - Interior Minister Gen Anupong Paochinda urged all provincial governors to be ready for ASEAN Community integration in 2015 after Thailand's development had been delayed by political problems.

Gen Anupong said in a special talk on "Interior Ministry for Regional Economic Drive” that governors in the special economic zones and border provinces must adjust their given budgets to precisely fit the need in their areas. They must see to it that the budgets could boost fundamental infrastructure, businesses and investments, especially at the five special economic zones in Mae Sot District, Tak, Sadao District in Songkhla, Aranyaprathet District in Sa Kaeo, as well as those in Mukdahan and Trat.

According to him, the government has plans to set up seven more economic zones in five other provinces such as Chiang Rai, Nong Khai, and Nakhon Phanom. He expected the economic zone projects to become concrete by 2016.

Gen Anupong also said each province has its own development plan, and provincial governors must adjust the given budgets to suit respective development activities including roads, water and electricity supply.

In his opinion, former political conflicts in Thailand had caused a delay to the infrastructural construction. Therefore, all sectors in the country should pool efforts for national reform which would lead to a better quality of life of all members in the society.

-- NNT 2014-11-22

[NongKhaiKid]

Forget the provinces being ready, is the country as a whole and the government ready ?

I seriously doubt it.

[whybother]

Forget the provinces being ready, is the country as a whole and the government ready ?

I seriously doubt it.

I have a friend that is the head of the JFCCT AEC committee. He regularly tells me that people in the government don't actually know how the AEC is going to work (ie who can work where, which companies can cross borders etc). There is no way they can be ready if they don't know what they need to do.

There are AEC agreements that have been in place for 4-5 years, and the Thai laws to make these work haven't even been put in place yet.

[Thaddeus]

There now follows a headless chicken alert.

[Lupatria]

Most of these guys are only aware of a border when there is a casino behind it.

[rickirs]

"after Thailand's development had been delayed by political problems."

General Prayuth might want to delay national elections until after 2015 (if it's not already delayed). Otherwise, there may be significant "political problems" requiring military "solutions" that might discourage ASEAN Community participation.

[Carrerakiss]

I can't help but think the AEC is going to be a damp squib. It seems to me that each country is looking for areas where they can exploit their neighbor, whilst at the same time raising protectionist barriers in areas where they themselves might be exploited.

The movement of labour seems to be very limited in terms of it being beyond what exists now, taxation doesn't seem to be an area of co operation, reduction of red tape to facilitate trade.....hmm not seen any of that proposed yet.

What exactly will the AEC achieve? Well, look at what else ASEAN have collectively achieved. It's not a very long list. In fact, a few affected countries helping Indonesia to reduce haze is about all I've seen and that wasn't an official ASEAN action.

As for Thailand, try queuing in the ASEAN passport Lane at the airports. It's either unmanned or used just like any other foreigner lane. I'm Singaporean, living in Thailand and I can't see any benefits to me. Believe me, I've looked.

[Dap]

Thailand is not ready and will not be ready, but you can

bet your bottom baht that all blame will be placed on the

past "political conflicts"

[richard10365]

I think to understand the AEC you need a degree in international business. It's complicated. It's an "economic" community so economic and business terminology was used when designing the AEC. It was designed by business experts and not politicians. This is why everyone is confused.

The 2008 AEC Blueprint (click here to download) is a road-map of objectives to the end goal of economic integration consisting of 4 main characteristics: (1) A single market and production base (2) A highly competitive economic region (3) A region of equitable economic development (4) A region fully integrated into the global economy.

It does not matter in the slightest amount what your definition of these characteristics are because ASEAN has defined them in the AEC Blueprint. It also does not matter what objectives you think ASEAN should include in order to reach economic integration because ASEAN has already listed them in the AEC Blueprint. Finally, it really doesn't matter if you believe or don't believe ASEAN will accomplish these objectives because the Action Points listed in the AEC Blueprint give ASEAN a way to measure itself and that alone determines the level of success or failure of the end goal of economic integration.

The characteristic that matters the most to people is the Single Market and Production Base. This particular characteristic has five core elements that impact people directly: (1) Free flow of goods (2) Free flow of services (3) Free flow of investment (4) Freer flow of capital (5) Free flow of skilled labor.

1. Free flow of goods: This is pretty straight forward and deals with importing and exporting products in and out of all the ASEAN countries. It deals with tariffs, non-tariff barriers, rules of origin, trade facilitation, customs integration, and standards and technical barriers to trade.
2. Free flow of services: This is extremely misunderstood by the politicians. Most associate it with 8 professions that can move freely between ASEAN countries. While this is part of it, it is not the entire story. Trade in services is governed by the ASEAN Framework Agreement in Services (AFAS) which is modeled after the General Agreement in Trade in Services (GATS) from the World Trade Organization (WTO). Countries trade one of twelve service sectors in which are 4 modes of supplying a service to a final consumer: (1) Cross-border supply (2) Consumption abroad (3) Commercial presence (4) Presence of natural persons. These 12 service sectors and 4 modes cover every job that foreigner can enter a country and get paid to do. This is the untold story that ASEAN politicians don't understand and are unable to explain to their citizens. When a country trades in services it means they are removing restrictions that prevent foreigners from entering the country and working. To date, hundreds of jobs across ASEAN have been liberalized in preparation for the AEC in 2015. ASEAN has posted all of the liberalization measures online free for anyone to download and review.
3. Free flow of investment: This deals mostly with protecting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in 5 production type industries (1) manufacturing (2) agriculture (3) fishery (4) forestry (5) mining and quarrying sectors as well as services incidental to these sectors.
4. Freer flow of capital: This deals with capital markets across ASEAN. In this instance, capital refers to how business raise money to continue or expand their operations such as with stocks or bonds.
5. Free flow of skilled labor: This has nothing to do with hiring high skilled workers but everything to do with entering another ASEAN country faster.

This information is what business need to know in order to be able to make decisions. For example, for most products, tariffs have been eliminated and now may be a good time to export to a city on the other side of a border where there is less competition and where the tariff free market makes shipping affordable. A different business may invite foreigners to bid on a joint venture opportunity in order to raise more capital to make improvements on plant and equipment needed to increase their competitiveness. Still others may want to invest in a neighboring ASEAN country with a wholly owned subsidiary or joint venture to help establish different supply chains in a new market. One thing to keep in mind, there are provisions in the trade agreements that allow foreign investment to bring in foreign labor as I mentioned above describing trade in services.

Based on the news story there will be new economic zones to attract more business. So if I was a factory owner producing a product this might mean a new competitor is moving into my market which I'm already competing in and I could lose my market share. Or, worse case scenario, the tax holiday that will be offered for foreign business to set up in these new economic zones may lower their cost of doing business and thus their prices of the products or services and this may put me out of business all together.

If I'm a factory owner and I want to lower my cost of doing business (because of new business competition) I may consider closing my business in my country and reopening it in the neighboring country in which the cost of doing business is considerably less. This means I would fire all my employees.

These are the 2015 realities facing all ASEAN countries. This is what people need to know.

[Carrerakiss]

I think to understand the AEC you need a degree in international business. It's complicated. It's an "economic" community so economic and business terminology was used when designing the AEC. It was designed by business experts and not politicians. This is why everyone is confused.

The 2008 AEC Blueprint (click here to download) is a road-map of objectives to the end goal of economic integration consisting of 4 main characteristics: (1) A single market and production base (2) A highly competitive economic region (3) A region of equitable economic development (4) A region fully integrated into the global economy.

It does not matter in the slightest amount what your definition of these characteristics are because ASEAN has defined them in the AEC Blueprint. It also does not matter what objectives you think ASEAN should include in order to reach economic integration because ASEAN has already listed them in the AEC Blueprint. Finally, it really doesn't matter if you believe or don't believe ASEAN will accomplish these objectives because the Action Points listed in the AEC Blueprint give ASEAN a way to measure itself and that alone determines the level of success or failure of the end goal of economic integration.

The characteristic that matters the most to people is the Single Market and Production Base. This particular characteristic has five core elements that impact people directly: (1) Free flow of goods (2) Free flow of services (3) Free flow of investment (4) Freer flow of capital (5) Free flow of skilled labor.

• Free flow of goods: This is pretty straight forward and deals with importing and exporting products in and out of all the ASEAN countries. It deals with tariffs, non-tariff barriers, rules of origin, trade facilitation, customs integration, and standards and technical barriers to trade.
• Free flow of services: This is extremely misunderstood by the politicians. Most associate it with 8 professions that can move freely between ASEAN countries. While this is part of it, it is not the entire story. Trade in services is governed by the ASEAN Framework Agreement in Services (AFAS) which is modeled after the General Agreement in Trade in Services (GATS) from the World Trade Organization (WTO). Countries trade one of twelve service sectors in which are 4 modes of supplying a service to a final consumer: (1) Cross-border supply (2) Consumption abroad (3) Commercial presence (4) Presence of natural persons. These 12 service sectors and 4 modes cover every job that foreigner can enter a country and get paid to do. This is the untold story that ASEAN politicians don't understand and are unable to explain to their citizens. When a country trades in services it means they are removing restrictions that prevent foreigners from entering the country and working. To date, hundreds of jobs across ASEAN have been liberalized in preparation for the AEC in 2015. ASEAN has posted all of the liberalization measures online free for anyone to download and review.
• Free flow of investment: This deals mostly with protecting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in 5 production type industries (1) manufacturing (2) agriculture (3) fishery (4) forestry (5) mining and quarrying sectors as well as services incidental to these sectors.
• Freer flow of capital: This deals with capital markets across ASEAN. In this instance, capital refers to how business raise money to continue or expand their operations such as with stocks or bonds.
• Free flow of skilled labor: This has nothing to do with hiring high skilled workers but everything to do with entering another ASEAN country faster.

This information is what business need to know in order to be able to make decisions. For example, for most products, tariffs have been eliminated and now may be a good time to export to a city on the other side of a border where there is less competition and where the tariff free market makes shipping affordable. A different business may invite foreigners to bid on a joint venture opportunity in order to raise more capital to make improvements on plant and equipment needed to increase their competitiveness. Still others may want to invest in a neighboring ASEAN country with a wholly owned subsidiary or joint venture to help establish different supply chains in a new market. One thing to keep in mind, there are provisions in the trade agreements that allow foreign investment to bring in foreign labor as I mentioned above describing trade in services.

Based on the news story there will be new economic zones to attract more business. So if I was a factory owner producing a product this might mean a new competitor is moving into my market which I'm already competing in and I could lose my market share. Or, worse case scenario, the tax holiday that will be offered for foreign business to set up in these new economic zones may lower their cost of doing business and thus their prices of the products or services and this may put me out of business all together.

If I'm a factory owner and I want to lower my cost of doing business (because of new business competition) I may consider closing my business in my country and reopening it in the neighboring country in which the cost of doing business is considerably less. This means I would fire all my employees.

These are the 2015 realities facing all ASEAN countries. This is what people need to know.

I follow what you say......I think........since it is written down and available for review.

However, the point I was trying to make is that despite what is written in the Blueprint, what is happening in reality is that each country is protecting its own interests. So in fact, come implementation day, there won't be actually be free flow of anything.

Try buying a car in Malaysia for instance and driving it up to Thailand to use, without paying any Thai tax. Ok, that's a simplistic example, but every single country has looked at where there maybe some detrimental effect on them and has, or will, introduce an "opt out", or introduced sufficient bureaucratic nonsense to negate any supposed change.

Nope, I'd even take a bet that 1 year later, five years later, maybe ten years later, the Blueprint will still be there, but free flow of anything will remain a pipe dream.

Sorry to be negative and in any case it'll be interesting to see what changes, if anything.

[richard10365]

I think to understand the AEC you need a degree in international business. It's complicated. It's an "economic" community so economic and business terminology was used when designing the AEC. It was designed by business experts and not politicians. This is why everyone is confused.

The 2008 AEC Blueprint (click here to download) is a road-map of objectives to the end goal of economic integration consisting of 4 main characteristics: (1) A single market and production base (2) A highly competitive economic region (3) A region of equitable economic development (4) A region fully integrated into the global economy.

It does not matter in the slightest amount what your definition of these characteristics are because ASEAN has defined them in the AEC Blueprint. It also does not matter what objectives you think ASEAN should include in order to reach economic integration because ASEAN has already listed them in the AEC Blueprint. Finally, it really doesn't matter if you believe or don't believe ASEAN will accomplish these objectives because the Action Points listed in the AEC Blueprint give ASEAN a way to measure itself and that alone determines the level of success or failure of the end goal of economic integration.

The characteristic that matters the most to people is the Single Market and Production Base. This particular characteristic has five core elements that impact people directly: (1) Free flow of goods (2) Free flow of services (3) Free flow of investment (4) Freer flow of capital (5) Free flow of skilled labor.

• Free flow of goods: This is pretty straight forward and deals with importing and exporting products in and out of all the ASEAN countries. It deals with tariffs, non-tariff barriers, rules of origin, trade facilitation, customs integration, and standards and technical barriers to trade.
• Free flow of services: This is extremely misunderstood by the politicians. Most associate it with 8 professions that can move freely between ASEAN countries. While this is part of it, it is not the entire story. Trade in services is governed by the ASEAN Framework Agreement in Services (AFAS) which is modeled after the General Agreement in Trade in Services (GATS) from the World Trade Organization (WTO). Countries trade one of twelve service sectors in which are 4 modes of supplying a service to a final consumer: (1) Cross-border supply (2) Consumption abroad (3) Commercial presence (4) Presence of natural persons. These 12 service sectors and 4 modes cover every job that foreigner can enter a country and get paid to do. This is the untold story that ASEAN politicians don't understand and are unable to explain to their citizens. When a country trades in services it means they are removing restrictions that prevent foreigners from entering the country and working. To date, hundreds of jobs across ASEAN have been liberalized in preparation for the AEC in 2015. ASEAN has posted all of the liberalization measures online free for anyone to download and review.
• Free flow of investment: This deals mostly with protecting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in 5 production type industries (1) manufacturing (2) agriculture (3) fishery (4) forestry (5) mining and quarrying sectors as well as services incidental to these sectors.
• Freer flow of capital: This deals with capital markets across ASEAN. In this instance, capital refers to how business raise money to continue or expand their operations such as with stocks or bonds.
• Free flow of skilled labor: This has nothing to do with hiring high skilled workers but everything to do with entering another ASEAN country faster.

This information is what business need to know in order to be able to make decisions. For example, for most products, tariffs have been eliminated and now may be a good time to export to a city on the other side of a border where there is less competition and where the tariff free market makes shipping affordable. A different business may invite foreigners to bid on a joint venture opportunity in order to raise more capital to make improvements on plant and equipment needed to increase their competitiveness. Still others may want to invest in a neighboring ASEAN country with a wholly owned subsidiary or joint venture to help establish different supply chains in a new market. One thing to keep in mind, there are provisions in the trade agreements that allow foreign investment to bring in foreign labor as I mentioned above describing trade in services.

Based on the news story there will be new economic zones to attract more business. So if I was a factory owner producing a product this might mean a new competitor is moving into my market which I'm already competing in and I could lose my market share. Or, worse case scenario, the tax holiday that will be offered for foreign business to set up in these new economic zones may lower their cost of doing business and thus their prices of the products or services and this may put me out of business all together.

If I'm a factory owner and I want to lower my cost of doing business (because of new business competition) I may consider closing my business in my country and reopening it in the neighboring country in which the cost of doing business is considerably less. This means I would fire all my employees.

These are the 2015 realities facing all ASEAN countries. This is what people need to know.

I follow what you say......I think........since it is written down and available for review.

However, the point I was trying to make is that despite what is written in the Blueprint, what is happening in reality is that each country is protecting its own interests. So in fact, come implementation day, there won't be actually be free flow of anything.

Try buying a car in Malaysia for instance and driving it up to Thailand to use, without paying any Thai tax. Ok, that's a simplistic example, but every single country has looked at where there maybe some detrimental effect on them and has, or will, introduce an "opt out", or introduced sufficient bureaucratic nonsense to negate any supposed change.

Nope, I'd even take a bet that 1 year later, five years later, maybe ten years later, the Blueprint will still be there, but free flow of anything will remain a pipe dream.

Sorry to be negative and in any case it'll be interesting to see what changes, if anything.

I agree that for some things, countries need to rewrite some of their domestic regulations but this applies more to trade in services than trade in goods. In fact, as of 2010, duties were eliminated on 99.2% of tariff lines for ASEAN-6 (Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei) and the CLMV (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam) states have reduced tariffs to 0-5% for 97.52 of their tariff lines. To me, that sounds like it's flowing pretty well. I forgot to mention the AEC Blueprint comes with a timeline and ASEAN is doing pretty good on reaching their objectives on time.

For trade in services, each country liberalizes where they feel foreign labor can best benefit the country. Some countries, like Thailand, are liberalizing slower in some sectors. Other countries, like Cambodia have extremely liberal policies in most sectors. This is how trade in services works in the WTO and ASEAN is also following this framework. There are always restrictions on foreigners coming into a country. Even developed countries have restrictions so don't expect to have a border-less region in ASEAN. However, as I mentioned before, liberalization agreements need to be followed up with domestic changes to existing laws. This is where some ASEAN countries are lagging.

The use of the AEC Blueprint was designed to start in 2008 and ends in 2015. It wasn't designed to go past that. However, ASEAN is not turning out the lights and going home on December 31st. They are already working on post 2015 plans to integrate deeper. 2015 is only the end of the beginning.

[micmichd]

"Free flow of investment"

Hopefully this does not imply a licence for foreign investors to take over Thai soil.