SINGAPORE: The government launched a charm offensive targeting 300 top regional business leaders here on Wednesday saying tax incentives that would make Thailand an attractive location for a regional headquarters will be announced within a month.
Pridiyathorn Devakula, deputy prime minister and economy tsar in the military's government, took his theme of "digital economy" to regional business leaders in Singapore on Thursday, but added that he will introduce new tax incentives before December that will make it most economically attractive of all to establish their regional headquarters in Thailand. (Post Today photo)
The region's business elite were also told the Prayut Chan-o-cha government was racing against time to reform the country politically and economically within its promised time frame by setting integrity and efficiency as goals for future civilian governments to follow.
Deputy Prime Minister Pridiyathorn Devakula, who oversees economic affairs, said his two priorities were to boost Thailand's competitiveness on the global stage and help Thai firms invest overseas.
He reiterated his policy to encourage trading companies to establish their regional headquarters in Thailand.
MR Pridiyathorn was speaking at the Forbes Global CEO Conference on Wednesday night. Participants included Charoen Pokphand boss Dhanin Chearavanont, Nepal's only billionaire Binod Chaudhary and Indorama Ventures' Indian-born and Jakarta-based plastics king Sri Prakash Lohia.
Elections will be held next year as planned while the National Reform Council and the charter writers will try to forge a new constitution that will guard against corruption and penalise wrongdoers quickly, he said.
"It would be in bad taste if the junta comes out after a year and a half and says 'we have to wait because I am scared the reds will win', " MR Pridiyathorn said.
"They are Thais. Let them go through elections. I am not scared of elections, but make sure that we have laws in place to prevent corruption and penalise those who are corrupt," he said.
MR Pridiyathorn was responding to a question from Thai-Australian businessman Michael Ma who urged the government to delay an election because if the government kept to its timetable, supporters of ex-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, whose popularity endures, would win.
"You can't hold off the election for too long. Three to four months from now people may start getting fed up with the performance of this government. We should stick to the existing timetable and do everything as fast as possible," MR Pridiyathorn said.
He said six months of political turmoil before the coup froze economic activity, new investment and hurt everyone economically, especially the poor.
The coup has brought stability and let the government jump-start the economy with short-term measures to quickly disburse public spending through more than 10,000 small infrastructure construction projects nationwide. People should start reaping the benefits from December, MR Pridiyathorn said.
The government's long-term economic plan is to enable Thailand to become a competitive trading nation like Singapore and Japan, he said. "It is not a dream for us to just aspire to be a regional trading nation."
MR Pridiyathorn said he has instructed the Board of Investment to establish a new department to help Thai firms expand overseas, find new markets and increase their competitiveness.
He is also working on a new package to lure international corporations from Singapore to set up their regional headquarters in Thailand. This would include eliminating all tax barriers.
Going into more detail about Thailand's political transition, MR Pridiyathorn said the National Reform Council and the constitution writers will design a charter that will target corruption and abuse of power by the executive and legislative branches.
"On the political front, what I see quite clearly is that many people will try to separate administrative and legislative power. Every constitution we've had allowed these two powers to come from the same party. But in future, we need legislative and administrative powers separated so we have a balance of power. That will be good for Thailand," he said.
For example, he said it could be that cabinet ministers can only be parliamentarians from the party list while elected constituency MPs can only be lawmakers.
Wouldn't it be lovely? The junta promises that within a month it will unveil new policies to make Thailand "an attractive centre for regional headquarters" of every company.