Jun. 24--An alliance of local supporting industries has warned that recent signs of recovery may not lead to a sustained rebound.

"The recovery mode is not clear. We are still uncertain what the direction will be in the near future," said Prasert Thammanoonkul, the president of the Alliance for Supporting Industries Association (ASIA).

"I don't think the government even knows whether the economy is recovering."

ASIA unites 13 associations for supporting industries including software, plastics, automotive parts, logistics, machinery producers, embedded systems and composites. The associations represent 15,000 companies, which have sales of 200 billion baht.

Only some members are seeing signs of recovery, said Mr Prasert.

The state of the economy can be gauged from alliance members' payrolls, he said. Before the crisis hit the local market, ASIA members had 200,000 staff. The financial crisis led the companies to make 20-30 percent of their employees redundant. A recent upturn in orders in some sectors has now brought about 5 percent of these laid off staff back into employment.

The alliance is calling on the government to listen more to the business sector, as it better understands the direction of the markets and the economy.

"We never have a chance to be part of the government's policymaking process, even though we are the ones who understand and know all about the market," he said.

Thailand, he said, should seek to develop innovations, supported by research from educational institutions, while the government should establish regulations to help businesses set up."Let's take renewable energy as an example. The business sector sees opportunities and educational institutions should provide us with innovative research support. Instead, what we see now is government agencies seeking to buy wind turbines from overseas," he said.

Mr Prasert also called for each ministry to set up a unit to respond to business sector requests and to help turn ideas into reality.

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