After 17 years away from Thailand, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has returned with ideas to develop and address the country’s issues.
His key visions for reshaping Thailand were outlined during the "Vision for Thailand" event organised by Nation Group as follows:
- Household debt restructuring and haircut: Finance minister must negotiate with the Thai Bankers' Association and the Bank of Thailand to implement these measures.
- Legalising the underground economy: Thailand has a substantial underground economy, currently estimated to be about 50% of the official economy. If this can be brought above ground, the GDP could increase by 50%, particularly by legalising online gambling, where Thais currently lose 170 billion baht annually.
- Industrial restructuring: By reducing electricity costs and promoting green energy, Thailand could become a safe haven for industries exporting to various regions like United States, China, Europe, and others, as Thailand faces no significant geopolitical issues.
- Entertainment complexes: This involves a significant investment of hundreds of billions of baht and could include casinos, occupying no more than 10% of the area.
- Land sales to foreigners: Thais would be able to sell land to foreigners, but the title deed must be transferred to the Treasury Department, which would then lease the land to the foreign buyer for 99 years.
- 20 Baht electric train fare: This could be achieved by government buying back private electric train projects, with the government setting ticket prices and introducing congestion charges from passenger car users to subsidise public transportation.
- Agricultural reform: Utilising R&D to add value to agricultural products, such as producing high-fiber, low-carbohydrate rice.
- Land Reclamation: Reclaiming land in areas like Bang Khun Thian and Pak Nam to create new green cities, tourist attractions, and flood protection for Bangkok.
- Negotiating maritime overlapping area: Expediting negotiations with Cambodia to jointly utilise fossil energy in the sea before the world moves away from fossil fuels.
- Financial hub: Transforming Thailand into a financial hub to attract global banks to establish operations here for international transactions.
- Tax restructuring: Implementing negative income tax to refund money to low-income earners, while also considering reductions in corporate and personal income taxes.
- Enhancing tourism potential: Expanding airports, developing man-made tourist attractions, and amending laws to facilitate private jet travel.
- Bureaucratic reform: Reducing the number of civil servants, curbing ballooning budgets, and increasingly using technology to replace manual processes.
- Promoting Soft Power in All Forms: Develop an ecosystem to support and enhance Muay Thai, Thai cuisine, fashion, and other cultural assets.
- Adopting protectionism: To ensure fair competition in the market, especially against low-quality, cheap imports, and to develop Thai SMEs into smart SMEs producing unique products, as they cannot compete with China's economy of scale.
