BEIJING: It is “critical” for Washington and Beijing to keep working together on climate finance, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Saturday (Jul 7), urging deeper cooperation in addressing the “existential threat” of global warming. Yellen is on a four-day trip to Beijing, as the United States seeks to coolContinue Reading
Suspect lured compatriots with promises of restaurant jobs but then forced them into prostitution
An Uzbek man has been arrested at Suvarnabhumi airport on charges of luring his compatriots into the flesh trade in Pattaya while two Uzbek women involved managed to flee, according to police.
Officers from the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Division (ATPO) apprehended the 32-year-old suspect at the airport on Thursday as he was about to flee the country, Pol Maj Gen Sarut Kwaengsopha, the ATPD commander, said on Friday.
The suspect, identified only as Navruzbek, was wanted on a warrant issued by the Criminal Court on charges of colluding in human trafficking by procuring women into the flesh trade.
According to police, Mr Navruzek and two Uzbek women had lured their compatriots into forced prostitution in Thailand by claiming that they would take them to work as assistant cooks at a restaurant in Pattaya. Many young women had fallen victim to the gang.
When they arrived in Thailand, the women ended up being forced into providing sex services to customers along a beach near Pattaya’s popular Walking Street, said Pol Col Pattanapong Sriphinphor, superintendent of ATPO Sub-division 2.
Anti-Trafficking in Persons Division police discuss the workings of an Uzbek human trafficking gang at a press conference on Friday. (Photo: Wassayos Ngamkham)
The suspect and his associates also trapped the women in debt bondage, telling them that they owed US$5,000 for travelling expenses and visa arrangements.
“Any victims who disobeyed the gang would be physically assaulted, illegally detained or denied food,” said Pol Col Pattanapong.
“Most victims had no choice and had to provide sex services. Each was forced to sell sex at least four times a day from 6pm to 6am. Those who did not meet the target would be punished by not being given food. The victims were given one meal a day.
“If the victims asked for their wages or wanted to return to their home country, the gang rejected by claiming that they had to pay back their debts first.”
According to the police investigation, the suspects asked their victims to work in Pattaya first before taking them to Bahrain, where they could earn more money.
One woman mmanaged to flee to seek help from the NightLight Foundation and Operation Underground Railroad, an anti-human trafficking organisation from the United States. She was later taken to file a complaint with the ATPO police.
Investigators subsequently issued warrants for the arrest of Mr Navruzbek and two Uzbek women — the alleged gang leader Zumrat, 42, and procurer Diloromkon, 22.
Ms Zumrat and Ms Diloromkon managed to take 17 victims with them when they fled the country, said Pol Col Pattanapong. The Uzbek man was about to flee, but was caught at the airport.
During questioning, he denied all charges, but admitted to having known Ms Zumrat. He was being held in police custody for legal action.
As Janet Yellen kicks China’s economic tires in Beijing this week, she may be surprised by how often the attention is veering toward neighboring Japan.
It just so happens that Yellen’s first China trip as US Treasury secretary coincides with intense debate about Asia’s biggest economy experiencing a Japan-like “balance sheet recession,” one that, if true, will be devilishly hard to reverse.
The reference here is to economist Richard Koo’s oft-cited observation about why Japan plunged into deflation and stagnation in the 1990s. Specifically, this is when economic insecurity prods a critical mass of households and companies to prioritize boosting savings and paying down debt over consuming and investing.
Unlike a formal recession, where gross domestic product (GDP) contracts, the balance sheet variety condemns an economy to underperform for several years.
It’s clear that as 2023 unfolds, “investors are concerned that China may have entered a liquidity trap or is experiencing a balance sheet recession,” says economist Carlos Casanova at Union Bancaire Privée, with the caveat that for now “these fears might be overstated.”
Yet the trouble with Japan-like economic funks is how souring sentiment can take on a life of its own. Herein lies the greater risk for Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang.
“Chinese policymakers are going about tackling the different factors underpinning weak sentiment,” Casanova explains. “Given the scattered nature of this support, it may take time for upside pressures on domestic asset prices to build and the Chinese yuan to stabilize.”
Koo, too, thinks China “is entering a balance-sheet recession,” partly because “people are no longer borrowing money” due to worries about the growth outlook and stability of asset markets. As households and companies focus on reducing debt, China’s growth can’t return to pre-Covid levels, he worries.
“I hope Chinese policymakers understand and respond to these challenges, because this might be the last chance for China to reach the living standards of the First World,” Koo explains.
Economist Ting Lu at Nomura Holdings worries that “China’s real estate sector is now starting to look somewhat similar to Japan in the 1990s.” As of May, for example, contract sales among the mainland’s 100 top developers were down roughly 57% versus pre-Covid-19 levels in 2019.
Though Japan’s plunge into deflation had several causes, cratering land prices — and the high degree of exposure to those prices among the nation’s biggest banks — was a key catalyst. The overhang set in motion the bad loan crisis that was core to Japan’s multi-decade malaise.
Economist Alicia Garcia Herrero at Natixis says land sales are “one of the most important components of China’s local government revenue.” She adds that “given the challenges faced by China’s property market are largely structural, i.e., slower income growth, population aging, we expect the land sales revenue to continue being under stress down the road.”
Xi’s policymakers have sought to downplay such concerns. In March, Chinese Finance Minister Liu Kun argued that a 2 trillion yuan (US$276 billion) drop in land sales would only result in a 300 billion yuan loss to local governments’ fiscal positions. That neat assessment may or may not add, however.
Clearly, economists can take the Japan-China comparisons too far. In 2021, economist Lan Xiaohuan published a best-selling book, “Embedded Power: Chinese Government and Economic Development”, detailing the unique dynamics of local property markets.
As Lan explains, “the real power is not ‘land as fiscal finance,’” but “using land as collateral to accelerate bank lending and other forms of credit. When ‘land as fiscal-finance’ meets the capital market and adds leverage, it becomes ‘land finance’” with Chinese characteristics.
Extreme opacity is an added problem. Along with privately-owned real estate companies, the top power brokers are state-owned entities known as Local Government Financing Vehicles (LGFVs), which borrow to finance infrastructure, industrial parks and housing across Asia’s biggest economy.
LGFVs’ outsized revenue role is now among the “main obstacles for broad-based macro support” for an economy losing momentum, says Casanova. They’re at the core of “PBOC concerns about financial risks” along with “households remaining on the fence” about “deploying pandemic surpluses due to weak sentiment.”
However, Casanova notes, “without additional targeted measures, those two reinforce each other, resulting in a deflationary spiral and making it harder for the economic recovery to broaden its base.”
Yet Koo argues that China has a key advantage over Japan: it can learn from Tokyo’s mistakes.
The key lesson, Koo says, is that stimulus treats the symptoms of China’s troubles, not the underlying ailment. While it’s vital that Beijing steps forward to ensure that giant building projects are completed, reforms to repair the property sector and build robust social safety nets are the key to avoiding “Japanification” risks.
Stabilizing property is vital to improving the quality of economic growth and reducing the frequency of boom-bust cycles. Social safety nets are needed to prod households to save less and spend more.
The good news is that China has “a fairly strong administrative system which can put losses where they should be — where they can be easily absorbed,” Raghuram Rajan, former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, told Bloomberg.
It may help, too, that the economic reform portfolio is now in Li’s hands. Unlike his predecessor, the newish premier appears to have Xi’s full confidence. That top-level buy-in is vital if Li is to pull off a monumentally difficult balancing act.
Li must support growth in the short run while maintaining the progress China has made in reducing extreme leverage and getting under the economy’s hood to recalibrate engines from exports to domestic consumption. Naturally, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) will play a key role in smoothing out GDP.
Markets need to be “thinking about the likelihood of further easing ahead,” says economist Rob Carnell at ING Bank referring to benchmark Chinese interest rates. He adds that “we’re going to get plenty more of those” moves to add liquidity in coming months “to keep [the] yuan on the back foot.”
Economist Joey Chew at HSBC Holdings says “some think that more concrete, non-monetary stimulus measures will only come out at or after the Politburo meeting in end-July. If so, some foreign-exchange policy smoothing may be needed in the meantime as we head into the dividend outflow season for China.”
Not everyone is convinced big stimulus moves are coming. Goldman Sachs economist Maggie Wei notes that recent meetings with greater China region investors unearthed lots of doubt. “Local clients did not expect major policy easing measures or structural reform measures to be rolled out in the July Politburo meeting” later this month, Wei says.
To some extent, the yuan’s 5% drop this year limits the PBOC’s options. Indeed, additional rate cuts might weaken the yuan to levels that exacerbate trade tensions with Washington and Tokyo. At the same time, a weaker yuan would increase default risks for China’s bigger property developers.
“The lesson from Japan’s lost decades is that without a timely debt clean-up and demand stimulus, the deleveraging mindset could become entrenched in the private sector and, after a certain point, even zero interest rates would not be able to help,” says economist Wei Yao at Societe Generale. It follows that “such a danger seems increasingly relevant for China, as evident in households’ strong appetite for savings.”
In the interim, interest margins among mainland banks “will be under persistent downward pressure if more of their lending capacity is used for extending loans to LGFVs at below-market rates,” Yao says.
China also faces an imponderable that Japan didn’t in the 1990s: a full-blown trade war with Washington.
Yellen’s presence in Beijing this week speaks to the high drama complicating Li’s job in stabilizing the economy. To some observers, Yellen’s trip is meant to reduce the geopolitical temperature following US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s recent visit.
“I would say it’s a little bit like good cop, bad cop, Blinken being the bad cop,” former IMF chief economist Ken Rogoff told the BBC. “And now Yellen going in as the good cop trying to say, look, you know, we have a lot in common. Let’s see what we can do together.”
Even so, Yellen manages to throw some sharp elbows. On Friday, she chided Beijing for policies toward US companies and a recent move to limit the export of gallium and germanium, niche minerals used in some chip-making.
“During meetings with my counterparts,” Yellen said, “I am communicating the concerns that I’ve heard from the US business community — including China’s use of non-market tools like expanded subsidies for its state-owned enterprises and domestic firms, as well as barriers to market access for foreign firms. I’ve been particularly troubled by punitive actions that have been taken against US firms in recent months.”
Xi’s government, of course, has its own gripes about US President Joe Biden’s efforts to make American manufacturers less reliant on Chinese production.
In the meantime, though, it’s hard to refute that “China’s economic development model resembles that of Japan over 30 years ago with high savings and high investment, but with restrained consumption and rigid institutions weighing increasingly on macroeconomic success,” notes George Magnus, a research associate at Oxford University’s China Centre.
Magnus adds that “China’s chronic over-investment and misallocation of capital, particularly in the property sector, pose a potentially bigger economic problem than Japan’s banking crisis in the 1990s.”
On the bright side, Magnus says, “China has some advantages over Japan, such as a state-owned financial system that can prevent significant banks from failing and a closed capital account that can protect the country’s banking system and the economy from the risk of significant capital flight. This however might not prevent China from taking the same economic trajectory [of] Japan.”
That requires urgent and creative moves to repair the property market, create robust social safety nets and put China on a path toward more productive economic growth. China can surely avoid Japan’s lost decades, but there’s not a moment to waste in shifting the narrative about the economy’s downward trajectory.
Follow William Pesek on Twitter at @WilliamPesek
Getty ImagesA landmark inquiry in Australia has found an illegal welfare hunt by the previous government made victims feel like criminals and caused suicides.
Known locally as “Robodebt”, it was an automated government scheme which incorrectly demanded welfare recipients pay back benefits.
People received letters saying they were owed thousands of dollars in debt, based off an incorrect algorithm.
More than half a million Australians were affected by the policy.
The scheme ran from 2016 until it was ruled illegal by a court in 2019. It had forced some of the country’s poorest people to pay off false debts.
Many were forced into worse financial circumstances – taking out loans, selling their cars or using savings to pay off a debt they were told they had to pay within weeks. Others described being vilified and feeling shame after being told they owed money.
On Friday, a royal commission inquiry into the scandal issued its final report, describing the scheme as a “costly failure of public administration” with “extensive, devastating, and continuing” ill-effects.
“Robodebt was a crude and cruel mechanism, neither fair nor legal, and it made many people feel like criminals,” Commissioner Catherine Holmes wrote in her 990-page report.
A royal commission is Australia’s most powerful form of public inquiry. This one ran for 11 months and drew hundreds of public submissions.
On Friday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese condemned the previous government’s scheme as a “gross betrayal” of citizens, which had harmed the most vulnerable.
The inquiry found there were at least three known suicides as a result of Robodebt policy, and it was “confident that these were not the only tragedies of the kind”.
The deaths by suicide included two young men Rhys Cauzzo, 28, and Jarrad Madgwick, 22, whose mothers gave testimony to the commission last year on their behalf. The other was not identified. Kath Madgwick had previously told the BBC she holds the government responsible for Jarrad’s suicide.
Other victims told the inquiry how the stress of a debt demand had caused them anxiety and depression and led them to consider suicide.
One woman said she felt suicidal for a period of months with the debt hanging over her head, with the “lowest point” being the day the debt collector debited the money from her bank account.
“I felt desperate on that day; it was so upsetting that I could not afford to pay for my daughter’s medical expenses and I felt powerless to improve my situation,” she told the inquiry.
Another victim, who had experienced mental illness previously, said that upon receiving a $A11,000 (£6,300, $8,100) debt notice, he was in “complete shock”, because it would “set me back years and years and years”.
He explained that “from a generalised anxiety disorder point of view, it’s just… the biggest trigger you can give to somebody.”
The inquiry’s final report on Friday criticised former Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s conservative government for launching the scheme where “little to no regard was had to the individuals and vulnerable cohorts that it would effect”.
The report also condemned Mr Morrison – who had been minister of the social services department at the time the policy was launched – for “misleading” Cabinet over advice that the switch to an automated system would not require legislative passage.
In response on Friday, Mr Morrison said he rejected “each of the findings which are critical of my involvement in authorising the scheme and are adverse to me”.
He maintained he had “acted in good faith and on clear and deliberate department advice”.
The report also accused the government of persisting with a cover-up of the scheme once its “unfairness, probable illegality and cruelty became apparent”.
“It should then have been abandoned or revised drastically, and an enormous amount of hardship and misery… would have been averted,” it said.
“Instead the path taken was to double down, to go on the attack in the media against those who complained and to maintain the falsehood that in fact the system had not changed at all.”
Commissioner Holmes also described a politicisation of welfare policy that had exacerbated a stigma often felt by recipients of social welfare.
The government also falsely exaggerated incidents of welfare fraud which were “miniscule” or less than 0.1% of cases, the report found.
The Morrison government abruptly ended the Robodebt scheme in 2019 after victims contested the legal basis in the Federal Court of Australia, where it was found to be illegal.
In its backdown, the government was also forced to refund over A$700m of payments to victims. It also settled a billion-dollar lawsuit brought by victims seeking compensation.
If you are feeling emotionally distressed and would like details of organisations in the UK which offer advice and support, go to bbc.co.uk/actionline.
If you are in Australia, you can call Lifeline at 131114, Kids Helpline at 1800 55 18000 or visit the Beyond Blue website.
MANILA: Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos on Friday (Jul 7) wrote off US$1.04 billion in land-related debt owed by more than half a million farmers, a move aimed at boosting food production. The “New Agrarian Emancipation Act” he signed into law waived all property-related debt owed by farmers who had beenContinue Reading
This week, India virtually hosted the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit, which brought together the most powerful nations across the Asian landmass and beyond. Among those in attendance were no less than Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese paramount leader Xi Jinping, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The latest SCO Council of Heads of State meeting was particularly crucial since it formalized the full membership of yet another major Asian power, Iran. In his opening remarks, Modi congratulated the SCO’s latest member while also signaling that Russian ally Belarus could soon also join the power grouping.
Member states also discussed other pressing issues including infrastructure connectivity challenges, cross-border security, insurgency and terrorism, and the increasingly volatile situation in Afghanistan, which shares a border with multiple SCO members.
Putin, the embattled Russian leader who just saw down a mutiny some have characterized as a coup attempt, used the occasion to project strength and expressed hope for greater strategic cooperation with like-minded Asian powers.
Under India’s rotational watch, the SCO was adamant that its expanding ranks do not necessarily signal a budding new military alliance. Yet all key members are committed to facilitating a more multipolar international order.
Despite their shared strategic interests, however, the latest SCO summit also revealed growing tensions among the world’s two largest nations, namely India and China.
Although India has refused to align with the West in the name of non-alignment, Modi implicitly criticized China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and robust defense ties with Pakistan, India’s archrival.
Reeling from its own festering border disputes with Beijing in the Himalayas, the South Asian powerhouse is also expanding defense cooperation with China’s rivals in the South China Sea, most notably the Philippines, a US treaty ally.
For his part, Putin put on a brave face amid a Wagner Group mutiny, a grinding war in Ukraine and economic recession at home.
Striking a defiant note, the Russian leader claimed that his country is stronger than ever, as it “counters all these external sanctions, pressures and provocations and continues to develop as never before.”
“I would like to thank my colleagues from the SCO countries who expressed support for the actions of the Russian leadership to protect the constitutional order and the life and security of citizens,” Putin told his SCO colleagues in a televised address from the Kremlin, referring to expressions of diplomatic support by neighboring states at the height of Russia’s political crisis last month.
SCO members such as India and China have been crucial to Russia’s economic resilience in the face of Western sanctions.
Russo-Chinese trade has exploded on a year-on-year basis. In the first five months of this year, bilateral trade totaled more than US$93.8 billion, making a 40.7% increase on an annual basis. Meanwhile, India has rapidly become Russia’s largest oil customer, just as Western economies have punitively scaled back their Russian energy imports.
Russia hopes that the inclusion of Iran, another major strategic partner that is also battling Western sanctions, would further enhance its pivot to Asia by facilitating the creation of a pan-regional trade and infrastructure development regime, with Central Asian SCO members as the geographic linchpin.
Putin was also visibly pleased by the vocal support of his most powerful SCO ally. China, the organization’s founding member, called for a new global order beyond the dictates of the West. Chinese paramount leader Xi Jinping firmly stood by his Russian ally and, accordingly, accused the West of a “narrow-minded” and zero-sum approach to 21st century geopolitics.
“We should truly respect each other’s core interests and major concerns, and firmly support each other’s endeavor for development and rejuvenation. We should keep in mind the overall and long-term interests of our region, and make our foreign policies independently,” Xi told his SCO colleagues.
“We must be highly vigilant against external attempts to foment a new Cold War or camp-based confrontation in our region. We must resolutely reject any interference in our internal affairs and the instigation of ‘color revolutions’ by any country under whatever pretext,” he added, underscoring the need for solidarity among Eastern powers in face of supposed Western aggression.
Although committed to a more multipolar international order, India has a radically divergent strategic calculus than its Russian and Chinese SCO counterparts. For starters, the South Asian powerhouse, which is also a member of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (“Quad”) along with the US, Australia and Japan, does not face any Western sanctions.
By and large, the West has relented in the face of India’s insistence on continuing its robust trade and defense ties with Russia. If anything, the West is focused on providing carrots rather than sticks in its dealings with India.
During his recent visit to the White House, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi signed onto a series of defense deals, which are explicitly designed to reduce his country’s historical dependence on Moscow.
India’s divergent outlook was clearly on display during the SCO summit. On one hand, Modi implicitly criticized China’s BRI, refusing to back the infrastructure development initiative embraced by all other SCO members.
“Strong connectivity is crucial for the progress of any region. Better connectivity not only enhances mutual trade but also fosters mutual trust,” said the Indian leader while not mentioning either the BRI or China explicitly.
“However, in these efforts, it is essential to uphold the basic principles of the SCO charter, particularly respecting the sovereignty and regional integrity of the member states,” he added, effectively echoing “debt trap” accusations against China’s signature infrastructure initiative.
If anything, the Indian leader also took a jab at China’s warm ties with neighboring Pakistan. During the SCO meeting, where both the Chinese and Pakistani leaders were in attendance, Modi warned against the “use [of] cross-border terrorism as an instrument” of foreign policy, referring to allegations that Pakistani intelligence elements have been involved in violent operations inside India.
Growing geopolitical differences stretch way beyond India’s own backyard. New Delhi is now actively backing China’s rivals in Southeast Asia. Earlier this year, the South Asian power officially kicked off negotiations for the sale of BrahMos supersonic missiles to Vietnam, which has long been at loggerheads with China in the South China Sea.
Just days ahead of the SCO summit, India also held high-stakes bilateral strategic dialogue with the Philippines, another major claimant state in the Beijing-claimed waters.
Following its acquisition of the BrahMos missle system last year, Manila is intent on further expanding military cooperation with the South Asian powerhouse. Anticipating booming ties, India is set to dispatch its first-ever defense attaché to Manila.
During the 5th India-Philippines Joint Commission on Bilateral Cooperation meeting in New Delhi last week, co-chaired by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Secretary for Foreign Affairs of the Philippines Enrique Manalo, India reiterated its support for the Manila-initiated arbitral tribunal award at The Hague in 2016, which rejected Beijing’s expansive claims in the South China Sea as incompatible with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
In a joint statement, India and the Philippines underscored the “need for peaceful settlement of disputes and for adherence to international law, especially the UNCLOS and the 2016 Arbitral Award on the South China Sea in this regard.”
Follow Richard Javad Heydarian on Twitter at @Richeydarian
The cabinet decided on Wednesday that it will let its successor deal with the debt incurred by the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) in hiring Bangkok Mass Transit System Plc (BTSC) to operate the Green Line extension, according to a Government House source.
Interior Minister Anupong Paojinda told the cabinet of the debt which the BMA is supposed to pay BTS Group Holdings for operating the Green Line extension, worth around 78 billion baht.
The cabinet acknowledged the outstanding debt and will hand it to the next government to deal with as it is beyond the power of the caretaker government to resolve.
The BMA is waiting for the government to take action on the debt problem, after the BMA submitted a letter to the Interior Ministry seeking the government’s help in sorting out the issues associated with the Green Line extension, Bangkok governor Chadchart Sittipunt said.
Mr Chadchart said the BMA has urged the government to help absorb the costs of building the Green Line’s infrastructure and the electrical and mechanical (E&M) installation work, worth around 20 billion baht, adding that the BMA was unable to take care of the costs.
Mr Chadchart said the BMA was prepared to pay for the E&M installation debt. However, this must be approved by the BMA council first.
At present, the BMA and its business arm Krungthep Thanakhom (KT) owe about 30 billion baht to the BTSC for operating and maintaining the Green Line’s first extension on the On Nut-Bearing and Saphan Taksin-Bang Wa sections, as well as the second extension on the Bearing-Samut Prakan and Mo Chit-Saphan Mai-Khu Khot sections.
IMPROVING COMMUNICATION Yellen is expected to focus on economic issues, but she will remind Chinese counterparts that any move to supply lethal aid to Russia – in violation of sanctions on Russia over its war in Ukraine – could trigger sanctions on Chinese entities, one senior administration official said. “WeContinue Reading
Aspiring prime minister Pita Limjaroenrat’s net worth has fallen 41 million baht since his assets declaration when he entered parliament four years ago.
The National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) on Wednesday published the declared assets and liabilities of 40 of the MPs whose terms ended on March 20. They included Mr Pita, whose declaration also mentioned his controversial shareholding in iTV Plc.
The Move Forward Party leader declared he was single and had 85 million baht in assets including 1.8 million baht in cash, 286,045.70 baht in deposits in 27 bank accounts, 15 million baht in loans to his younger brother, 14 rai of land in Pran Buri district of Prachuap Khiri Khan worth 18 million, a condominium worth 15 million baht in Wattana district and 19 million baht in insurance-related assets and relevant privileges.
Mr Pita also declared 12 million baht worth of ornaments and devices, including three mobile phones worth 166,700 baht, a 2.3 million baht van, 28 shirts worth 188,000 baht, 16 suits worth 1.2 million baht, 76 neckties worth 228,000 baht, 21 pairs of shoes worth 150,000 baht, 10 watches worth 5.71 million baht and eight Buddha amulets worth 2 million baht.
Mr Pita declared 20.74 million baht in liabilities – bank loans totalling 19.93 million baht and 807,414 baht of credit card debt.
The Move Forward Party leader informed the NACC he held 42,000 shares worth 44,100 baht in iTV Plc on behalf of other relatives because he was executor of his late father’s estate.
The Bangkok South Civil Court had ordered him to hold the shares in his capacity as executor and he had already transferred the shares, he told the anti-corruption commission.
The iTV shareholding led to complaints questioning his eligibility to hold a political position because the constitution prohibits a shareholder in a media company from running in a general election.
When compared with the 126 million baht in assets declared when he entered parliament in 2019, Mr Pita’s wealth fell about 41 million baht during his four-year term as an MP.
NACC assistant secretary-general Watanachai Sommee said the commission had ordered Mr Pita to file documents relating to his role as his father’s executor, and Mr Pita had until July 23 to supply the papers.
The NACC would examine the documents thoroughly and would also check on Mr Pita’s sale of a block of land in Pran Buri district of Prachuap Khiri Khan, as the sale price was not reported, Mr Watanachai said.
Thailand’s new government, which is expected to take shape soon, should work to build confidence on the global stage and focus on balanced development, a seminar was told on Monday.
Speaking at a seminar on the future of Thai politics held by the National Press Council of Thailand, Chulalongkorn University political scientist Surachart Bamrungsuk said the world has recently faced five major crises, including the pandemic, a new Cold War and the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
These issues have affected Thailand’s security and economy, said Mr Surachart, adding that the upcoming government faces several domestic challenges that will determine the country’s and people’s abilities to handle future global disruptions.
Mr Suchart said Thailand’s role in international affairs has diminished while the country’s economy has taken a big hit from the global economic situation.
Domestically, the country still faces southern violence, political divisiveness, issues of civilian-military relations, post-Covid rehabilitation and challenges related to the transition to democracy, he said.
“These are the problems that await the new government,” Mr Surachart said. “They pose questions as to whether the new government will want to put the country on the geopolitical map and if it can bring political stability and boost economic confidence for the country on the global stage.”
In his speech, Somkiat Tangkitvanich, president of the Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI), said that for a country to achieve balanced development, it must have a strong government and civil society.
Mr Somkiat said a strong government could tackle problems and promptly respond to people’s demands, adding that the government’s failure to tackle PM2.5 ultra-fine dust is an example of an ineffective government.
He said the country needs to strengthen its civil society to monitor and hold government policies accountable effectively.
According to Mr Somkiat, despite a low unemployment rate, Thai workers are considered underpaid compared to their productivity and consumer prices. He said that daily minimum wages should be 380-390 baht.
He said low wages lead to increases in household debts which, according to the Bank of Thailand, amounted to 16 trillion baht in the first quarter of this year, or 91% of GDP, following the redefinition of household debt.
The National Press Council of Thailand held the seminar to mark its 26th anniversary.