BANGKOK, 1 June 2012 – The Federation of Thai Industries has called on the government to urgently strengthen the local economy ahead of the realization of the ASEAN Economic Community in 2015.
Federation of Thai Industries (FTI) chairman Payungsak Chartsuthipol said that his Thursday meeting with participants of the World Economic Forum (WEF) on East Asia discussed the strategies on the enhancement of Thai economy’s competitiveness.
The FTI chairman said that the discussion agreed that the Thai government should study the structure of the economy to identify strengths and weaknesses and speedily fix all problems, in order to push Thailand to be the center of AEC in 3 years’ time. He added that such a task is needed to help stress the country’s determination to be the gateway to ASEAN as well as to help draw investment from China and India to this growing region.
Mr. Payungsak stated that the ongoing street protest against the draft national reconciliation laws in front of Parliament has not worried the private sector, which views the movement as acceptable under the democratic rule, although it hopes that there will not be any violent incident that will push the country backward.
He went on to say that the private sector believes the government will be able to prevent the repeat of last year’s severe flooding.
The FTI chairman also expressed confidence that the Bank of Thailand will be able to rein in the issue of fluctuating value of the baht and to keep it in line with regional currencies and prevent its movement from hurting the economy.
