Thailand needs to amend restrictive laws and regulations to achieve its road map for national reform and its vision of Thailand 4.0, a seminar in Bangkok heard Thursday.
Kobsak Phutrakul, a member of the government's economic reform committee, said legal reforms are necessary to embrace what authorities have dubbed the fourth industrial revolution, noting the country has an undue share of anachronistic regulations.
He said several were introduced as protective measures but they now pose as obstacles because the economic environment has changed.
In South Korea, thousands of laws were revised as part of a legal reform wave and a supportive regulatory environment helped that country save costs, he said.
"Several potential business operators gave up their plans because they had to go back and forth to ask for several permits," Mr Kobsak told a seminar on Thai law reform Thursday.
He said the committee will spend eight months revising those laws that handicap businesses.
Legal expert Borwornsak Uwanno, who chairs the national advisory board supervising legal reform, echoed his views.
Mr Borwornsak said the advisory board, which will be transformed into a committee on implementing legal reform, will improve the existing laws and draft new ones to cut red-tape and create an environment more conducive to doing business for the sake of the country's competitiveness.
The panel will also work closely with the law development committee chaired by charter drafter Meechai Ruchupan in preparing a five-year legal reform plan.
The plan is expected to be ready next April and submitted to the Committee for National Administration under the Framework of National Reform, Strategy and Reconciliation for consideration.
Mr Borwornsak said graft and corruption in part stems from these restrictive laws.
"The solution is not setting up an anti-corruption task force. There aren't enough cats to catch all the rats. We should abolish the laws that impose unnecessary restrictions," he said.
Bank of Thailand governor Veerathai Santiprabhob said the bank must implement exchange rate and investment law reforms.
He said those laws were introduced in 1942 to curb outflows of capital and maintain national reserves.
Apichon Chantarasen of the national advisory board supervising legal reform said a database should be set up to help people with their research.