Policy Implication on Manufacturing Factory in Lacquered Industry for Food and Beverage Can in Thailand

Abstract

The aims of the study are 1) to explore the problems and obstacles in business operation in the industry on lacquered steel sheets for food and beverage cans manufacturing in Thailand, 2) to understand how the policies are developed and evolved over time in supporting the establishment of lacquered steel sheets factory and to explore the trend in the future in developing the resource person, material and knowledge, 3) to study the roles of government, private agencies and individuals towards lacquered steel sheets industry, and 4) to examine the relationship of public-private sector to strengthen the concerted effort in policy implication for the construction of the factory of lacquered steel sheets. There are two groups of people who are directly involved with this industry. They are comprised of Group 1: policy makers and officials from government agencies and 7 key informants will be interviewed, Group 2: entrepreneurs from business and private agencies and 17 case studies will be selected for interview in totaling of 24 people, and Group 3: quantitative respondents and 300 people living in Bangkok Metropolitan Region. The qualitative research methodology uses the in-depth interview relying on the content analysis and further investigation of data. Whereas the quantitative instrumental method is structured by the questionnaire drawing upon the descriptive statistic data analysis on percentages, means, standard deviations, reliability, t-test independent and F-test. Scheffe test is one of the multiple comparison techniques is used for evaluation. The results of the study are:

1) Problems and obstacles in business operation in the industry on lacquered steel sheets for food and beverage cans manufacturing have resulted from the lack of policy implication from the government agencies in governing this kind of industry. The enacted ad-hoc policy has caused the operation of business-to-business by private agencies in proceeding solely the management of importing the raw materials and export the products to foreign country. The shortcomings result from the negligence from the government policy in custom system, export promotion, research support for developing resource persons, raw materials, and technology from state agencies.

2) The Thai government has no policy implementation to support the construction of factory of lacquered steel sheets over the years. The business operation in this industry is functioned solely by the private sector in all stages of management process in administering the resource person, raw material and knowledge without any support and cooperation from the government agencies. This has caused the difficulty in constructing the factory for lacquered steel sheets industry because of the state dysfunctional mechanism in supporting orderly system in labour skill training, raw material supply and knowledge development on this industry.

3) The lack of the state mechanism of administrative management in operating and facilitating the business on lacquered steel sheets industry limits the effectiveness of the integration of public-private sectors including relevant agencies in policy implementation and legitimization of the authorized agencies in participatory action.

4) The way forward to the coordination of public-private sectors in policy implementation on the construction of factory of lacquered steel sheets industry for food and beverage cans, the government’s role as bureaucratic administrator and the policy maker should support realistically the action plan by formulating the strategy of the public-private intervention. The adoption of Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) evolved from negotiation and cooperation amongst the government, the business investors, and the workers in manufacturing process including consumer protection group helps to facilitate the policy formulation and the mandate of authorized agencies to support the operation of the lacquered steel sheets industry.