Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI) urges the government to step up efforts to guillotine outdated laws, which hinder business activities and cause 1.3 billion baht in unnecessary expenses, as part of the state economic recovery for the post-pandemic period.
Without more serious action to guillotine outdated laws, or "GOL" as TDRI president Somkiat Tangkitvanich calls it, Thailand will find it difficult to improve its competitiveness and return to the high GDP growth registered before the 1997 Asian financial crash.
TDRI estimates mandatory regulations for the process of asking for licences to operate businesses lead to massive unnecessary expenses every year, which is a major hindrance to Thai economic development, said Mr Somkiat.
For hotels and Thai massage businesses, investors bear almost 4 billion baht a year in asking the state permission to operate. This excludes the lengthy time needed for the approval process, said TDRI.
Outdated laws enforced by state agencies were partly blamed for reducing Thailand's ranking in the World Economic Forum competitiveness index, causing the country to lag behind Vietnam.
After 1997, Mr Somkiat said, the Thai economy expanded by less than 4% for more than two decades, a drop from 5-6% growth in the pre-1997 period. Last year the economy regressed because of the pandemic, with Thailand tallying the lowest GDP figure among Asean nations, he said.
GOL is badly needed to facilitate business activities and improve the economy, Mr Somkiat stressed during a seminar on Thai economy. The only two Thai agencies to cut the red tape were the Bank of Thailand and the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2017, which involved granting licences and permission to investors. This eventually resulted in the reduction of unnecessary costs by almost 2 billion baht a year, said TDRI.