Bangkok--15 Jun--European Association for Business and Commerce
The European Association for Business and Commerce (EABC) recently hosts an exclusive dinner talk series with H.E. Deputy Prime Minister, DR. Wissanu Krea-Ngam as a guest of honour. He addressed the European Business Community in Thailand, high-level diplomatic representatives from European Member States Embassies, EU Delegation and Thai authorities on the topic of “Ease of Doing Business and Transparency Upgrade: Thailand’s Facilitation Act.”
The Licensing Facilitation Act B. E. 2558, approved by the National Legislative Assembly and promulgated in January 2015 and becoming effective in July 2015, is presented as a service revamp to speed up the Government official approval process and public services for Thai and foreign citizens and businesses. The Act is envisaged to reform the Thai bureaucratic system and enhance the transparency and accountability as as well as improving standards of public services.
DR. Wissanu Krea-ngam, emphasised that “Besides the key benefits aiming for faster, easier, and cheaper; government procedure; this Act encourages a strong incentive for agencies to perform better. It challenges agencies to seek continuous improvements, such as by shortening service time, establishing one stop service centres, and increasing use of ICT to improve convenience”.
The Licensing Facilitation Act is thus an important step taken by the current Government with an effort to upgrade ease of doing business in Thailand, increase transparency, accountability and also to stem out corruption. Continuous improvement is also another key aspiration of the law.
“To drive improvement, legal and regulatory review is required every 5 years to see whether government approvals are still necessary, or if it can be replaced with more convenient and less time consuming measures. We believe these key features of the law will improve our ease of doing business and greatly benefit foreign businesses operating in Thailand, as well as those considering entering the country. Mundane tasks will truly be mundane; only made faster, easier, and cheaper” Dr. Wissanu added.
Mr. Rolf-Dieter Daniel, President of EABC, said “It’s encouraging to see that Thailand is taking an important step forward with the introduction of the Public Service Facilitation Act. This is a legal milestone in the right direction to improve and simplify business operations for companies interacting with Thai Government Authorities, ensure more transparency which consequently will attract new trade and investment to the country.”