“So in practice you can see MRAs don’t work very well. I don’t see this changing by 2015. The framework for MRAs was set in 2003 but we only have them for seven professions at this point. Even we have a shortage in some professions such as nursing, but I don’t think this is likely to change anytime soon.”
She was also pessimistic about whether Asean members had the political will to liberalisethe service sector.
“Only Singapore is trying to promote the free flow of skilled labour. Thailand doesn’t want to change anything anytime soon, and most Asean member want to keep the status quo. Don’t forget MRAs are still voluntary.
“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.