Democrat Party deputy secretary-general Korn Chatikavanij, right, at the party’s headquarters yesterday after outlining its new election platform to appeal to poor rural voters.

Democrat party deputy secretary general Korn Chatikavanij said it will announce a platform to counter its rival Thai Rak Thai's populist policies early next month.

Korn admitted the Democrats could not promise to make all people better off because the country could not afford it. But, it does aim to introduce plans to change behaviour and reliance on borrowing.

"Debt problems are significant for the grass-roots. We will help them escape the circle of debt creation," he said.

The Democrat Party will also launch social welfare programmes that are sustainable and long term. They will be different from Thai Rak Thai's pork-barrel policies.

"Our social welfare programmes will be implemented in stages to promote good governance and a defined completion date," he said.

Korn also yesterday warned the Bank of Thailand against baht intervention in to support exports, saying that would reflect that it was more concerned  about economics than stability and inflation.

He said economic growth would be affected by an economic slow down in the United States and China. Consumer confidence in US has ebbed to its lowest in 16 years. The US economy is expected to growth just 3 to 3-3.5 per cent this year.

Thailand's economic growth may be lower than expected because tax collections over the past two months are down, and tax provides the state with 90 per cent of revenue.

He added tax collection had slowed since 2004, with growth of 16 per cent. It was 12 per cent last year.

The rate is expected to drop to 10 per cent in 2006 and to 8 per cent in 2007. "With the slowdown in tax collection, the government's ability too stimulate the economy will be reduced.

Korn worries that planned public investment in 206 of just five per cent of GDP will be insufficient to drive economic growth. That expenditure amounts to just Bt365 billion.