Thai Public Capital Budget and Management Process

This chapter describes the public capital budgeting process in Thailand. Public infrastructure is very centralized; local governments do not play a large role in public infrastructure investment. The country's long-term physical planning is fragmented and lacks an effective long-term fiscal planning. The budget process is dominated by senior civil servants in the Bureau of the Budget, the Ministry of Finance, Bank of Thailand, and the National Economic and Social Development Board. Expensive projects financed by long-term debt bypass the budget process, and as a result, a comprehensive list of annually approved projects is unavailable to the public. This leads to public investment being driven almost entirely by debt capacity. Because of these factors, Thai governments have invested too little in public infrastructure, and the infrastructure investment is uneven across sectors.