Price control is often perceived as a convenient tool to protect consumers’ interest as it is simple and visible. However, when the state sets a maximum price of a product or service in a potentially competitive market, it may unintentionally undermine competition in the market and may even facilitate tacit price collusion. This paper illustrates such regulatory fallacy in the case of the electronic interbank credit transfer service in Thailand, where the Bank of Thailand sets the maximum rates that a commercial bank may charge its customers. It also provides a follow-up of the central bank's regulatory amendments following the findings of the report.

This paper discusses Thailand's long-term growth experiences and future challenges for driving growth. Good growth performance between 1960 and 1985, and the boom between 1985 and 1995, led to an aspiration for Thailand to become an advanced economy by 2020. This was completely derailed by the 1997 financial crisis. It took eight years for the economic overhang from the crisis to fully dissipate. Thailand then entered a period of political crisis, which has continued to the present. After 1997, the growth drivers changed substantially, with exports becoming the main growth driver and investment collapsing. Growth has been slower than before the financial crisis and Thailand is now one of the worse growth performers in ASEAN. Export is now less effective in driving growth and there is a need to revive investment as the future growth driver. There remain many challenges to Thailand's long-term growth. The paper suggests a number of policy directions to make investment effective as the future growth driver.

ASEAN is considered one of the most successful economic regions, because it managed to dismantle many of the tariff barriers among the ten member states. Its more ambitious goal, however—of becoming not only a single trade area, but also a single production base by the year 2015—appears elusive. The investment liberalization goals stipulated in the ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint, a roadmap for regional economic integration, is meek, indicating unwillingness of member states to open up their cosseted and, at times, lucrative, service sectors. Moreover, current commitments of member states do not even match up with such goals. To be able to establish a regional production base, member states will have to stand up against local interest groups that benefit from the status quo, be they large domestic state and private companies operating in key service sectors such as telecommunications, energy and finance, or professional councils or professional associations that would like to reserve jobs exclusively for their members. If not, the region will certainly gradually but surely lose its economic flair.

Since the Asian financial crisis in 1997, Thailand has become highly dependent on exports as the main engine of economic growth. In 2008, the ratio of export to GDP was about 76.5 percent. The global economic crisis triggered by the sub-prime loans debacle in the United States has prompted Thailand to rethink its high dependence on export. This paper examines the options for external and internal economic rebalancing strategies for Thailand. External rebalancing will require Thailand to rely more on regional markets and less on the Western markets for its exports. The paper examines the possibility of promoting greater intra-regional trade and Thailand's regional trade strategies. As for internal rebalancing, the paper emphasizes the need to boost domestic public and private investment in terms of both quantity and quality to narrow the current saving–investment gap, bearing in mind the need to ensure fiscal sustainability. Finally, the paper examines broader rebalancing strategies that will help Thailand to become less dependent on exports. These include the need to (1) improve productivity; (2) increase economic efficiency; (3) deepen the production structure and create new dynamic industries; and (4) generate new growth poles.