For Goanpot Asvinvichit, 50, president and CEO of the Government Savings Bank, politics and business go hand in hand because the latter's prosperity depends on political stability and continuity.

His reasoning appears to reflected in the prevailing view of the business community, whose leaders have so far declined to take a clear-cut position on the current conflict between the anti-Thaksin and pro-government camps.

Goanpot, who has been in politics and the public sector for the past decade and a half since leaving his family's rice-trading and other businesses in his mid-30s, says the so-far peaceful anti-Thaksin movement shows that the evolution of democratic governance in Thailand is probably more advanced than that of several other Asean nations

"I guess we would be ranked higher than several neighbouring countries if there was a democracy-maturity index. So long as protests are done within the realm of law, it shows we've moved forward democratically.

"However, we're probably still much behind the UK or the US. For instance, over a million Britons recently expressed public dissatisfaction over the UK government's conduct of the war in Iraq. Yet the UK government remains intact.

"Here, we've raised the morality issue . The government responded by dissolving the House and calling for a snap election. Then the opposition parties responded by boycotting the election, and so on.

"All these actions and counter-actions have created a political uncertainty that does not bode well for the economy and businesses," he says.

Since 1991, Goanpot has enjoyed a high-profile career in politics and later the public sector. At the age of 35, he was appointed a member of Thailand's National Legislative Assembly. Later on he was named a senator, a deputy commerce minister and a Thai trade representative, among others.

An MBA graduate from the University of Southern California, Goanpot's business experience started at home when he was only 18, as his family's Saeng Thong Rice Co was then one of the country's major rice exporters.

"Back in the late 1970s, the international rice trade was all about information and speed. It was the Cold War period, so successful firms were those which got better market information and could move faster to fulfil orders. We used to handle export orders worth an annual US$200 million [Bt7.8 billion].

"The rice trade has changed dramatically over the past decades. I've not been involved with this business for a long time. I think the future of Thai businesses lies in services and entrepreneurs' ability to continually add value.

"In banking, we need to increase value for customers by cross-selling a wide range of financial services and products, such as insurance, mutual funds, etc," he says.

Over the past two years, Goanpot has been instrumental in re-engineering the 93-year-old Government Savings Bank (GSB) to become a more competitive player in the banking industry

"We've done a number of major reorganisations so far. First, we attempted to change the mentality of our employees to boost our competitiveness. We told them that if our organisational culture was not changed, the bank would be left behind the competition because the world has changed so much in the past decades.

"That's a daunting task, given that we have 10,000 employees nationwide and that these people have been with the bank for generations. We have people who used to work here whose children or grand children or relatives are now working here. It's a closely-knit community with a deeply-rooted culture.

"Second, we reorganised to gradually turn GSB into a result-oriented organisation.

"Third, we're moving from a product-centred approach towards the customer-centred approach, with emphasis on the use of information technology.

"A lot of our services will soon be available only online or on the Web as we phase out many manual services," he says.

For 2005, GSB reported a net profit of Bt12 billion, up 7.12 per cent from the previous year. Its total assets amounted to Bt680 billion while its capital funds totalled Bt79 billion. The bank's non-performing loan ratio was 3.45 per cent in 2005, up 0.75 per cent from the previous year.

Nophakhun Limsamarnphun

nop1122@yahoo.com