Foreign investors worry about court order suspending projects

Thailand’s Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij on Friday conceded that foreign investors are concerned over the Central Administrative Court’s order regarding 76 industrial projects in the Maptaput industrial estate in the Eastern Seaboard province of Rayong suspending their operations.
Speaking through the Sky Link system from Istanbul, Turkey, where he is attending the 2009 Annual Meeting of International Monetary Meeting-World Bank Board of Governors, Korn said businesspersons from Belgium, Norway, and Sweden spoke to him expressing their concern over the court order.
The minister said he told them that the government had already appealed the court order since it is confident that the implementation of the projects does not breach the Thai Constitution.
What the government must do now is to urgently clarify the definition given by the projects’ opponents about the adverse impacts on the environment so that investment projects which have won approval for implementation are allowed to proceed.
Korn acknowledged that foreign investors might withdraw their investment in the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) if the suspension order drags on.
However, the finance minister said he believed that investors would not yet withdraw their stakes in setting up production plants in Thailand because they are long-term investments.
Korn said the economies of Asian countries - particularly Japan, South Korea and Thailand - had recovered markedly since the second quarter of this year.
Because of this, foreign investors are confident and want to make further investments in various industries in these countries, he added. (TNA)