Bangkok Post

Mr Payungsak said the government should now rapidly move ahead with its water management and flood control plans before the rainy season arrives.

Pornsilp Patcharintanakul, vice chairman of the Thai Chamber of Commerce, said the  government must immediately call a meeting of various panels set up to make decisions on water management projects.

All bidding for the work be made transparent and open. Details of water management projects must be made known to the general public via the government’s websites, he added.

Mr Pornsilp said if the government runs these projects without any problems of corruption, Thai and foreign investors would have more confidence in the government and the country.

Thanawat Ponwichai, director of the Economic and Business Forecasting Centre at the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce, said the court’s ruling on the two financial decrees will boost economic growth by between five and seven per cent annually over the next four years.

What the government must do now is to push ahead with its projects to ensure that they are completed on time, said Mr Thanawat.

The Constitution Court on Tuesday cleared the way for the Pheu Thai-led government to go ahead with its multi-billion-baht post-flood spending plans that are designed to strengthen investor confidence.

The nine judges on the bench voted unanimously that the executive decree allowing the government to borrow 350 billion baht to fund water management and flood rehabilitation projects was constitutional.

The judges voted 7-2 in ruling that the second executive decree for the transfer of full responsbility for the 1.14 trillion baht of debt accrued during the 1967/68 financial crash bailout by the Financial Institutions Development Fund (FIDF) to the Bank of Thailand was also in compliance with the charter.