State enterprises in need of reform
The Nation May 6, 2009 12:00 am
Bureaucracy, political intervention and mismanagement are all to blame for the poor performance of public-sector organizations
While new investment in the private sector has slowed down, the government is set to play a more prominent role by increasing public investment to boost economic sentiment. Unfortunately, a number of state enterprises are not in a strong position, financially. Their unsatisfactory performance is mainly a result of mismanagement, excessive red tape and political intervention that has crippled several of them for years.Although the overall revenue of all state enterprises increased from Bt3.06 trillion in 2007 to Bt3.55 trillion last year, the profits of these state enterprises were reduced by almost half from Bt204.19 billion to Bt122.333 billion over the same period.