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Published on September 4, 2007

Deputy leader Korn Chatikavanich said he was optimistic that if the party lead a coalition government it could implement its core economic policies. "Usually the leading party controls economic policies," he said yesterday at a seminar hosted by the Faculty of Economics at Chulalongkorn University.

Korn said he felt there would be no objection to more investment in infrastructure such as transport, irrigation or other mega-investment projects because the country needed such investment after a decade of little action in that area.

He expected public investment would boost private investment and household consumption. The Democrats would also support some manufacturing and service sectors in order to promote competitiveness. This included tourism, health care services and the food industry.

Narong Pethprasert, a political economics lecturer at Chulalongkorn University, said, however, the next leading political party might not be able to pursue its policies if it had to make compromises with allies.

He said he had not seen any party policy that would pay attention to income distribution, nor had parties designed policies to respond to different interest groups. He said the largest group of voters were the 16 million employees, followed by 12 million farmers and eight million self-employed.

Sompop Manarungsan, an economist at Chulalongkorn University, was worried about the economic outlook after the election. The economy currently relied too much on the export sector, as exports were worth about 65 per cent of gross domestic product.

Sompop said the world economy would hit a critical juncture next year. The US economy was expected to slow down further as a result of the sub-prime debacle. It was likely to have a domino affect on China's and Thai exports.

Wichit Chaitrong

 The Nation