Yes, he was supposed to discuss the trend of interest rates, but he couldn't resist the temptation to discuss something else that was on his mind.

"Can I talk about something else but interest rates?," he asked the audience. Then Boon, the president of Piyavate Hospital, told the audience about the issue he was most concerned with.

"People keep saying that foreigners are worried about the coup or the capital controls, but these issues are tiny compared to the recent Public Health Ministry decision to enforce compulsory licences [by ceasing protection] on two patented drugs," he said.

Public Health Minister Mongkol na Songkhla announced early in the week that his ministry would enforce compulsory licensing on Kaletra, an AIDS drug produced by US-based Abbott Laboratories, and Plavix, the blockbuster anti-clotting agent, which is sold by France's Sanofi-Aventis and US-based Bristol-Myers Squibb.

Imposing compulsory licensing is a legal way to break otherwise binding patent requirements.

Boon said the news of the compulsory licensing had spooked foreigners more than any other.

He said he hadn't received any worrying phone calls when there was a coup or when the capital-control measures were announced. "They can take that," he said.

But when the news of the compulsory licences broke, Boon said, he received an urgent phone call from a senior US State Department official, who inquired about the policy, saying it discouraged investors, who feared the possible suspension of other drug patents.

Drug companies are sometimes painted by NGOs as multinational corporations that sell overpriced goods, Boon went on, but World Trade Organisation members tend to refrain from using compulsory licences to suspend drug patents because it is difficult to prove when the epidemic in a country has reached a critical level where the compulsory licence is the only option.

Finally, Boon said, the decision was yet another of Mongkol's wrong policies, in the wake of his controversial Draconian measures to curb alcohol advertising - measures that were later reversed.

Compulsory licences, which have nothing to do with sufficiency economy, Boon said, only create a bad perception among foreigners about the direction of the Thai government.

Busdsk@nationgroup.com