In addition, many foreign policy initiatives are large-scale and require support from private sector especially through investment. However, the poor co-ordination between the government and private sector results in no clear direction and strategy. Thai private sector ends up in seeking short-term profits, especially in Myanmar and Laos. They usually engage in the extraction of natural resources and services in the tourism industry. They are more interested in low-return, low-technology business especially subcontracting infrastructure projects while its Singaporean and Malaysian counterparts paidmore attention to investment in big long-term projects.7 Coupled with inconsistent support from the government, especially after the 1997 Financial Crisis, the Thai private sector was not strong enough to drive or sustain the economic dynamics of Thailand’s regional initiatives that required private sector’s role.