“I think many Thais are afraid they will lose their jobs to foreigners if the service sector opens up. Of course the answer is to get better training and pick up more skills so they can acquire better jobs, but both the government and professional councils prefer to ignore this point. The government needs to announce a national policy regarding opening up the services sector to investment and labour, but implementation has been very slow. There simply is no economic reason to continue protectionism in this sector.
“Most professional councils don’t see any benefit in actively using MRAs. They believe protectionist policies better serve their members. But the Nursing Council is starting to realise maybe it could open up the sector to all Asean members voluntarily, and this may have a knock-on effect for other services.”