Flexible position
‘Thai Riviera’ plugged as funds promised
Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha is coached during a yoga session during a visit to the Raksawarin Hot Springs in Ranong. Gen Prayut will travel to Chumphon today, where he will chair a mobile cabinet meeting. The premier has promised to allocate more resources to develop Ranong’s tourism industry, which is one of four provinces selected for the so-called ‘Thailand Riviera’ initiative to boost coastal tourism.
Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha yesterday promised to inject more cash into development schemes to help the beautiful yet sedate seaside province of Ranong reach its full potential.
“I confirm that Ranong must be developed into one of Thailand’s cities of the future because the province is part of the Thailand Riviera ... an area that will induce more development and more tourism,” said Gen Prayut during his visit there yesterday. Gen Prayut and his cabinet members yesterday started two days of cabinet meetings in Ranong and Chumphon provinces. The cabinet is expected to inject 200 billion baht into infrastructure projects in scores of southern provinces.
He told residents and businessmen who came to greet him that Ranong has strong potential in various fields, but the province had failed to fulfil that potential due to failings in its transportation and logistic infrastructure.
Ranong province, he said, will have more opportunity because it is one of four provinces that has been selected for a socalled “Thailand Riviera” initiative to boost coastal tourism in the upper southern region. The Thailand Riviera development will cover Phetchaburi, Prachuap Khiri Khan, Chumphon and Ranong, and the four provinces will receive extra funds as part of the initiative.
Gen Prayut visited Ban Khao Nang Hong of Ranong’s Muang district, where Ranong Port is being upscaled. The remodelled port, he said, would help further economic cooperation in the Bay of Bengal zone.
Gen Prayut told residents that he was worried about the tumbling crop prices and promised them he would take measures to add value to farm goods.
He told local people that the government will also focus on improving logistics connectivity in the region. He said the government is proceeding with rail development, adding that a double-track railway stretching 4,000 kilometres across the country is on the cards.
The administration is also drafting up plans to develop the 14 southern provinces along Andaman Sea and the Gulf of Thailand, he noted.
When the notion arose he has been attempting to curry favour among local people with cash-heavy infrastructure projects for their areas, Gen Prayut denied that the mobile cabinet trips were being conducted for political gain.
As a leader, he said, he needed to follow through on local development and only projects that are suitable necessary get approved.
The prime minister also went to Ranong City Hall to witness a ceremony to hand community land use certificates to 84 local people, covering 511,333 rai in the Pa Khlong Lamliang-La-un National Reserve.
He also delivered 1,832 artificial corals to local representatives to be used to augment the marine ecosystem.
Meanwhile, Dusit Nuamnual, chairman of the Federation of Thai Industries’ Surat Thani chapter, said representatives of the private sector in the South would ask the government to support Surat Thani to become a hub for the production of palm oil.
The money would be used to improve all aspects of the production process in the province, he said.