Caretaker government, protesters urged, again, to negotiate

BANGKOK, January 3 (TNA) - Thailand's caretaker government and protesters have been, again, urged to turn to a negotiation table to quickly end the ongoing political strife. Anusorn Thamjai, Dean of the Faculty of Economics of Rangsit University, cautioned on Friday that Thailand's ongoing political problems have affected confidence in the national economy, caused over 200 billion baht worth of funds to flow out of the country and resulted in a decline in the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) index and the depreciation of the Thai baht. Anusorn said if leaders of the government and anti-government protesters let confrontation happened, it would cause damage worth a trillion baht, equivalent to as much as 10 per cent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP), apart from losses of opportunities in many other areas. Besides, Thailand would take more than a decade for its rehabilitation and lose its opportunity to be a center of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Economic Community (AEC). Anusorn, therefore, urged leaders of Thailand's both caretaker government and protesters to enter into a negotiation.(TNA)