In recent weeks, progress towards privatizing and listing Thailand's two telecom sector state enterprises - TOT Corporation Plc TOT originally scheduled for November 2002 and the Communications Authority of Thailand CAT initially earmarked for 4Q2002 - has slowed dramatically. While it may be convenient for the authorities to blame unfavourable financial market conditions for the delays, the reality is that the slow progress is very much due to domestic factors that are largely officialdom's own making.
Let's look first at TOT's predicament. It is now official that TOT's IPO has been delayed until 1Q2003. While TOT was successful in transforming itself into a public corporation at least on paper back in August, since...
