Former ASEAN chief urges Thai businesses to enhance competitiveness

BANGKOK, April 21 (TNA) - Former secretary-general of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Surin Pitsuwan has called on Thai business operators to quickly improve their efficiency to enhace their competitiveness, as the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) is scheduled to be formed by 2015. Surin made the call at a seminar on the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) and economic and trade changes in Bangkok on Monday, stressing that the Thai private sector needs to improve their product quality and delivery punctuality, while the Thai public sector needs to increase its efficiency as well; otherwise, Thailand would lose national competitiveness. Surin expressed his support for the Ministry of Commerce's Department of Business Development’s plan to empower over 2 million Thai small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in order to cope with competition in the AEC. The former ASEAN secretary-general, who is also a Thai former Democrat foreign minister, also suggested that Thailand quickly figure out solutions to domestic political strife and non-transparency in businesses so that the problems would not affect the whole ASEAN. Meanwhile, Kongkiat Opaswongkarn, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Asia Plus Securities Public Company Limited, said he hoped Thai political problems would end soon, warning that the prolonged problems would cost the national competitiveness, especially when the AEC is established by 2015, and affect the decisions of local and foreign investors, while slowing down the national economy as well. Pongpun Gearaviriyapun, Director-General of the Department of Business Development, also recommended that Thai business parties enhance their competitiveness, maximize the use of existing privileges and develop partnerships to create national efficiency comprehensively in supply chains. (TNA)