Why Samui and Not Phuket for Special Administrative Status?

Last updated: Fri 27 Nov, 2009 9:49 am | Viewed: 473 times

News out of the nation's capitol has the island of Koh Samui and Mae Sot in Tak Province as lead contenders for upgrades to Special Administration Zones. Currently in Thailand only Bangkok and Pattaya fall under this sector. One of the key benefits of falling into this category is the ability to elect senior local Government officials rather then appointments that are routinely rotated throughout the various provinces of the country.

While the issue of Phuket becoming a Special Administrative Zone has been a topic of discussion for a number of years, it's unclear why this has not moved forward. The Government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has continued to focus on a decentralized form of administration with 35% of its budget being put back into local offices and municipalities.

For many leading business leaders on the island who acknowledge the importance of tourism and now certainly a new focus on environmental concerns having long term locally elected players at the helm of the province may provide for greater consistency of long term planning and policy. Certainly there remain many pros and cons to the two sides of the argument but for now Phuket has for some reason been surpassed in priority with Thailand's other key resort island destination Koh Samui.

While both Bangkok and Pattaya are both special administrative units, the two differ a lot. While Bangkok is at provincial level and therefore has all the tasks which the Changwat administration has in all other area, Pattaya is part of Chonburi province and is only a special kind of municipality, only differing in details from other cities (thesaban nakhon).

For Mae Sot both a new province as well as a special administrative area for the town itself was in discussion last year already, the case of Ko Samui surprises me, as just last year the municipality was upgraded to town level. However as far as I understand it, in both cases the special administrative area would be modeled after Pattaya, and not creating whole new provinces like Bangkok.

Andy, Sat 28 Nov, 2009 4:15 am

a real big kick in the pants for Phuket & another disapointment for those who have a business on the island. Sorry to hear this, lets home common sense prevails and Phuket will be granted the upgrade. DG

Danny Glover, Fri 27 Nov, 2009 11:46 am

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