March 13, 20242 yr From The Nation Time magazine has placed Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin on the cover of its March 25 edition, calling him “The Salesman”. “I want to tell the world that Thailand is open for business again,” Srettha tells Time’s Charlie Campbell, during a wide-ranging interview held in a Government House room “ringed by whiteboards chock-full of scrawled policy objectives: digital wallets, national aviation hubs, potash mining, Tesla”. Srettha stares from the cover with a look of determination on his face, arms crossed over his chest. The prime minister’s efforts since taking office last August have already paid dividends, Time says, noting that foreign direct investment in the fourth quarter of 2023 doubled from a year earlier as Amazon Web Services, Google and Microsoft inked deals worth a combined US$8.3 billion or 296 billion baht. But Srettha has inherited a stagnating economy, soaring inequality and a politically divided country from the previous “quasi-military” government, it adds. Thailand’s GDP growth “has been below 2% over the past decade, while neighbours like the Philippines, Indonesia, and Vietnam registered double to triple that rate and ate Thailand’s lunch on FDI”. Srettha freely acknowledges the depth of his challenge, telling the American news icon that Thailand is in an “economic crisis”. However, Time says the country feels “shortchanged by his election” after Srettha’s Pheu Thai party came second to Move Forward, which was then blocked from forming a government by a military-appointed Senate. “The paradox is that Srettha is fighting to fix Thailand’s economy by partnering with the same forces invested in thwarting major reform,” the magazine says. Continues at https://www.nationthailand.com/thailand/politics/40036342
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