Thai PM urges salary cuts for executives

Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has urged state enterprises to consider cutting executives' salaries as a means of reducing losses, particularly at Thai Airways International, the media reported on Thursday.

Prayut on Wednesday said state enterprises were ineffective and plagued with high debt, and it is a national problem that needs to be tackled, the Bangkok Post reported.

"I will overhaul them. Each organisation hires a large number of people, but when they held early retirement incentive programmes, only low-level officers exited, not high-level executives," the prime minister said.

According to Prayut, some state enterprise executives earn up to 200,000 baht (about $5,623) per month, but have no jobs to do.

Prayut said several state enterprises have high income but are facing problems, among them Thai Airways.

"Thai (Airways) has tried to improve several aspects of its operations, but is still unable to reverse its losses," he said.

The prime minister felt the national airline focused too much on operations, ignoring problems at the executive level.