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Thailand, Lao PDR sign
land transport agreement
Thailand and neighbouring Laos recently signed a land transport agreement
designed to cut transportation costs and boost tourism between the two
countries, according to a senior Thai Transport Ministry official.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed by Chairat Sa-nguansue,
Thailand’s acting director-general of the Land Transport Department, with
Viengsavath Siphandone, director-general of the Lao PDR Department of Public
Works and Transport.
Chairat said the MoU would help boost tourism on a new route linking Luang
Prabang in northern Laos with Thailand’s northern provinces of Chiang Mai
and Chiang Rai, in which private bus operators of the two countries will be
encouraged to invest and operate on. The Thai government-owned Transport
Co., Ltd. would be asked to operate on the route soon, he said.
In future, buses traveling between Laos and Nakhon Ratchasima, considered
Thailand’s gateway to the northeast, and Pattaya on the eastern seaboard,
will be open as the two destinations are popular among Laotians, said
Chairat.
At present some 452 companies with some 10,700 trucks operate between the
two countries daily, up sharply from only a few hundred operating only a
year ago, and the MoU is expected to further boost goods transport, he said.
Thailand and Laos have an agreement which allows vehicles to cross the
border by using a special license plate. (TNA)
Thailand notches up to 13th
in ‘Doing Business’ rankings
Doing business in Thailand has become significantly easier
that in most countries in the world, according to new information from the
world’s top two international financial institutions.
Thailand has risen to the 13th position from 19th in the “2009 Doing Business”
rankings published by the US-based World Bank and the International Finance
Corp.
Based on information obtained from July 2007 through June this year, Thailand
was ranked 13th out of 181 nations worldwide and fourth among Asian countries.
Singapore retained the top ranking for the third consecutive year, followed by
New Zealand, US, Hong Kong, China and Denmark.
Thailand led other reformers in the region with improvements in four areas -
Registering Property, Protecting Investors, Paying Taxes, and Trading across
Borders, said the report.
The report pointed out that Thailand had been notched up by six levels in its
rank because its government made paying taxes easier by reducing some fees and
facilitating online filing and payments. In addition, it now exempts companies
with taxable income not exceeding 1.2 million baht from corporate income tax and
applies concessionary 25 percent rates for newly listed companies.
The report also mentioned that Thailand had succeeded in amending the Securities
and Exchange Act to strengthen minority shareholder rights. Provisional
reductions of the property transfer fee and specific business tax have lowered
the cost to transfer property from 6.3 percent of the property value to 1.13
percent. A new internet-based customs clearance system reduced the number of
documents that must be submitted in hard copy from nine to three for imports and
from seven to four for exports.
Launched in 2003, Doing Business examines 10 indicators of a country’s business
climate, the ease or difficulty faced by that country’s private sector.
Doing Business 2009 ranks 181 economies on the overall ease of doing business.
The top 25 are, in order, Singapore, New Zealand, the United States, Hong Kong
(China), Denmark, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia, Norway,
Iceland, Japan, Thailand, Finland, Georgia, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Bahrain,
Belgium, Malaysia, Switzerland, Estonia, Korea, Mauritius, and Germany. (TNA)
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