‘Open for business’: Thailand’s ‘salesman’ PM Srettha travels globe to woo investors
- Former property tycoon Srettha Thavisin has spent much of his two months in charge abroad, trying to reverse his nation’s economic pain
- He’s met Xi, Biden and Putin, visited many countries, and pursued firms including Tesla and Google. But is it enough without economic reforms?
Srettha Thavisin, a former property tycoon turned prime minister, has spent the two months he has been in office focused on turning around Thailand’s below-par economic performance.
To get the nation – crawling at an average growth rate of 1.87 per cent for the last 10 years – running as fast as its peers, he has chosen to break conventional norms.
Srettha became the first leader in some four decades to take on the dual role of finance minister. Not so formally, he is also acting as the nation’s chief salesman, enticing tourists, investors and anything or anyone that can support Thailand’s growth.
“The most urgent task of this government is to get the economy back on track and set Thailand up for success in the long run,” Srettha told a conference of Thai and foreign businesspeople and diplomats on November 1.
“Thailand is now open and ready for business. There’s no better time to invest in Thailand than now,” he declared.
While his nine trips around the world to meet leaders, court companies and investments have been applauded, and earned him the moniker “salesman prime minister” from technocrats and business groups, analysts question whether the frenetic activity and push to build mega infrastructure projects will yield real results without much-needed economic reforms.