While former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra insists he's done with politics, he isn't done advising politicians what to do.
Thaksin, who returned from exile last month after having been ousted from office and banned from politics in a 2006 military coup, said Thailand's newly elected government must repair economic damage to the country caused by the leaders who unseated him.
In an interview on Tuesday, Thaksin called for lower interest rates, a weaker currency and more business investment.
"We have to bring back confidence to Thailand after the coup," he said. "It's quite difficult, but the government has to try harder."
Thaksin's advice to the ruling People Power Party, which was founded by his loyalists and won the first post-coup election in December, suggests he wants to continue exercising political clout, said Suriyasai Katasila of the Campaign for Popular Democracy, an activist group that opposed Thaksin when he was in office.
"He is running the government behind the stage now and will come back for sure once he proves his innocence in front of the justice system," Suriyasai said. "His words on the economy have much influence because the team running Thailand's economic policy at the moment is basically his."
Thaksin, who remains a popular figure for his policy of grants to poor villages, presided over Thailand's fastest economic growth in a decade. In the interview, he said the Southeast Asian nation's interest rates need to be lower to boost confidence among consumers and investors.
Thai Finance Minister Surapong Suebwonglee last week said economic growth could reach 6 percent this year, the best pace since 2004, when he unveiled tax cuts aimed at spurring spending. Southeast Asia's second-largest economy expanded 4.8 percent last year, slowing from 5.1 percent a year earlier.
"It's not easy for any government to step in now right after the coup," Thaksin said. "It's been almost two years that the country has not moved forward."
Consumer and business confidence in Thailand languished under the junta-backed government amid economic policy bungles and political squabbles.
Thaksin said the Thai currency is "too strong compared to other currencies in the region."
The baht is at the highest level in more than a decade after adding 6.9 percent this year, the most among Asia's 10 most-traded currencies outside Japan.
"Because of the strong baht, Thailand should take this opportunity to upgrade the production quality of exporters by bringing in new machines, equipment and technology," he said.
Thaksin, whose Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais) party won a record 377 of 500 parliamentary seats in 2005, was ousted in September 2006 after months of demonstrations in Bangkok by protesters who accused him of corruption. He was also criticized over the 2006 tax-free sale of the mobile-phone company he founded to Singapore's sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings Pte.
Last May, a nine-judge tribunal appointed by the junta that ousted Thaksin said his party broke laws in a 2006 election. The judges dissolved the party and imposed five-year political bans on 111 executives of Thai Rak Thai, including Thaksin.
JITTERS: Nexperia has a 20 percent market share for chips powering simpler features such as window controls, and changing supply chains could take years European carmakers are looking into ways to scratch components made with parts from China, spooked by deepening geopolitical spats playing out through chipmaker Nexperia BV and Beijing’s export controls on rare earths. To protect operations from trade ructions, several automakers are pushing major suppliers to find permanent alternatives to Chinese semiconductors, people familiar with the matter said. The industry is considering broader changes to its supply chain to adapt to shifting geopolitics, Europe’s main suppliers lobby CLEPA head Matthias Zink said. “We had some indications already — questions like: ‘How can you supply me without this dependency on China?’” Zink, who also
At least US$50 million for the freedom of an Emirati sheikh: That is the king’s ransom paid two weeks ago to militants linked to al-Qaeda who are pushing to topple the Malian government and impose Islamic law. Alongside a crippling fuel blockade, the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM) has made kidnapping wealthy foreigners for a ransom a pillar of its strategy of “economic jihad.” Its goal: Oust the junta, which has struggled to contain Mali’s decade-long insurgency since taking power following back-to-back coups in 2020 and 2021, by scaring away investors and paralyzing the west African country’s economy.
BUST FEARS: While a KMT legislator asked if an AI bubble could affect Taiwan, the DGBAS minister said the sector appears on track to continue growing The local property market has cooled down moderately following a series of credit control measures designed to contain speculation, the central bank said yesterday, while remaining tight-lipped about potential rule relaxations. Lawmakers in a meeting of the legislature’s Finance Committee voiced concerns to central bank officials that the credit control measures have adversely affected the government’s tax income and small and medium-sized property developers, with limited positive effects. Housing prices have been climbing since 2016, even when the central bank imposed its first set of control measures in 2020, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋) said. “Since the second half of
AI BOOST: Next year, the cloud and networking product business is expected to remain a key revenue pillar for the company, Hon Hai chairman Young Liu said Manufacturing giant Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday posted its best third-quarter profit in the company’s history, backed by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Net profit expanded 17 percent annually to NT$57.67 billion (US$1.86 billion) from NT$44.36 billion, the company said. On a quarterly basis, net profit soared 30 percent from NT$44.36 billion, it said. Hon Hai, which is Apple Inc’s primary iPhone assembler and makes servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s AI accelerators, said earnings per share expanded to NT$4.15 from NT$3.55 a year earlier and NT$3.19 in the second quarter. Gross margin improved to 6.35 percent,
RSS