Chalongphob Sussangkarn

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Chalongphob Sussangkarn was the President of the Thailand Development Research Institute and is the current Minister of Finance in Surayud Chulanont's military junta. An ethnic Chinese of Hainanese origin,^[1][2] He replaced Pridiyathorn Devakula after Pridiyathorn abrubtly resigned. Chalongphob joined several other TDRI-affiliated individuals who had Cabinet-level seats in the junta, including Deputy Prime Minister and Industry Minister Kosit Panpiemras and Energy Minister Piyasvasti Amranand. Prior to joining the cabinet, Chalongphob had no experience in government and was an economist.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Education and career 2 Policies 3 References

[edit] Biography

[edit] Education and career

Chalongphob received BA and PhD degrees from the University of Cambridge. After graduation, he taught at the Department of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley during 1977-79.^[3] He later joined the World Bank in Washington, D.C., where he served from 1979 to 1985. He then returned to Thailand to work as an economist at the Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI).^[4] Dr. Sussangkarn served as the President of TDRI from 1996 up until 2007. He resigned from the his post in early March 2007 inorder to accept appointment as finance minister, replacing Pridiyathorn Devakula, who abruptly resigned.^[5]

[edit] Policies

Chalongphob's policy stance was pro-business, and included:

• Being against the Surayud government's capital control policy,
• Support for greater liberalization of foreign investment in Thailand, and
• Being against the Thaksin government's populist economic policies.^[6]

[edit] References

• Online Profile
• TDRI
• "Chalongphob is appointed as new finance minister." The Nation 03-07-2007
• "Test Times." The Nation 03-07-2007