Among the government's objectives, the most urgent - restoring investor confidence in the country's economy - also happens to be the easiest to achieve, provided that the transitional authority gets its economic policy orientation right from the outset.

This shouldn't be all that difficult to achieve. After all, Thailand's economy has shown remarkable resilience amid political turmoil in the past eight months, which culminated in the military coup that toppled Thaksin Shinawatra's government last week.

In a way, it is encouraging to note the relatively mild market jitters that followed the military takeover, as the business community breathed a sigh of relief at Thaksin's downfall. At long last, the fog of political uncertainty that had dampened Thailand's economic prospects had been lifted.

Now people know that by the end of the one-year period, the interim government will step aside so that full democracy can be restored and a new government elected through a free and fair election.

The first task that the new prime minister and his interim government must tackle is dealing with the mess that the Thaksin administration left behind. Thaksin's mistakes are numerous and their negative impact continues to weigh on the country's otherwise fundamentally sound economy. Through his autocratic style of leadership, Thaksin indulged in the bad habit of micromanaging the economy by courting rural voters. Our macro-economy is sound thanks largely to lower debt, strong export growth and a high level of international reserves.

Under the Thaksin government, state intervention, which distorted market forces, was rampant. Such meddling in the market by the government may appear to have offered quick fixes to short-term problems but it tended to mask longstanding structural problems that were usually left unattended to. Examples abound of micromanagement schemes that were costly and produced little results. These include the One Tambon One Product (Otop) scheme and the Bangkok Fashion City project - both created a lot of buzz but failed miserably to promote entrepreneurial skills among poor villagers and fashion designers.

The Tourism Authority of Thailand, which is supposed to coordinate public and private sector efforts to promote tourism, was turned into a big-budget marketing agency.

The new government must not only review and rein in some of these extravagant expenditures that cost taxpayers tens of billions of baht with little to show for it - but it also must rethink the management of the country's economy. The new government must go back to basics by emphasising a market-oriented economic management style. High on the government's priority list must be corporate tax reforms to improve Thailand's competitiveness as a venue for investment as it becomes obvious that the country can no longer rely solely on promotional privileges alone to attract foreign investors.

Another item is the infrastructure mega-projects initiated by Thaksin, which have resulted in confusion among prospective foreign investors who were discouraged by corruption scandals and vaguely defined project information. The new government is expected to take over and continue with these mega-projects but must ensure transparency in the bidding and a level playing field for all investors.

Genuine consultation between the government and the private sector, which had been marginalised in the face of Thaksin's overbearing CEO leadership style, must be brought back so that the business community can provide valuable input to the formulation of economic policy. In addition, education reforms and skills development for the country's workforce must be vigorously promoted because these are crucial factors that will determine if the Thai economy is to bounce back with a high degree of competitiveness in the global economy.