8 Thai Parties Pitch Tax Breaks, Fast IPOs to Lure Investors

For anyone trying to decide whether to top up a port or keep fresh cash on the sidelines, Thailand’s pre-election season just handed you a cheat sheet. Eight political parties—spanning the establishment to new-age upstarts—went public with economic blueprints they say can pull trading volume out of its five-year slump, re-ignite investor confidence and restore the SET’s lost shine.

Quick scan before you dive in

• Renewed tax breaks such as revamped LTFs and a brand-new Thailand Individual Savings Account (TISA) figure prominently.

• Parties compete on how to make the market cleaner, cheaper, faster—from a capital-market court to one-year IPO approvals.

• Regional playbooks from Japan’s governance reboot and Korea’s value-up drive quietly influence Thai proposals.

Why the next cabinet will decide whether liquidity returns

Daily turnover on the Stock Exchange of Thailand slid from ฿88B in 2021 to just ฿41B in 2025, a pattern seasoned investors read as a vote of no confidence. FETCO’s Investor Confidence Index bounced between bearish and hot territory six times last year alone. That volatility underpins the parties’ urgency: without foreign fund inflows, household savings will have to carry the market, yet retail enthusiasm has thinned after years of scandals, pump-and-dump rings, and opaque regulation. The ballot therefore doubles as a referendum on who can reverse the slide.

The competing cures—grouped by theme, not by logo

Tax-powered savings tools• Centrist and conservative blocs alike want a leaner, five-year holding period for Long-Term Equity Funds. Progressive voices counter with TISA, letting savers pick individual shares while still enjoying tax relief.

Faster, fairer fundraising• A coalition of reformist parties backs trimming the IPO queue to 12 months, creating a digital-asset board and easing SME listings. Together they target 4 M trading accounts and ฿100B in fresh market cap within one term.

Law-and-order overhaul• Proposals range from a stand-alone capital-market court to automatic short-selling audits. Some candidates openly blame the SEC for being “too timid,” promising new leadership that can name, shame and jail manipulators.

Energy for the new economy• One camp ties capital-market revival to solar liberalisation, arguing lower power costs will attract data-centre, AI and crypto miners—and eventually their IPOs.

Reading the sentiment gauges

When the ICI swung to a bearish 58.45 last June, brokers cited domestic political risk; three months later it flipped to a scorching 120.22 as stimulus cheques landed. The lesson: policy clarity moves sentiment faster than GDP releases. If the next government can pass its market bills within 100 days, analysts at two major securities houses project average daily turnover could rebound above ฿60B by 2027, pulling the SET back into regional ETF allocations.

Borrowing ideas from Tokyo and Seoul—without copy-pasting

Japan’s Stewardship Code, aggressive share buy-backs and cash hand-outs inspired Thailand’s talk of a corporate-governance upgrade. Meanwhile South Korea’s Value-up Programme, which rewards companies for higher dividends, fuels proposals for a local “Value Unlocked List” that links tax perks to ROE targets. Experts warn, however, that transplanting reforms without Thailand-specific enforcement will only create another paperwork burden.

What the professionals still need to hear

Market veterans say three unanswered questions will make or break confidence:

Will enforcement budgets rise enough for regulators to chase cross-border money-laundering rings?

Can the Finance Ministry surrender some control so the SEC and the exchange act with real independence?

How will TISA or the new LTFs coexist with existing Provident Fund and SSF incentives to avoid cannibalising household savings?

Take-away for savers, traders and CFOs

If you are waiting for a green light, watch the first budget speech of the new administration. A credible timeline for tax-deductible savings accounts, a clear stance on short-selling rules, and firm dates for IPO fast-tracking could be the catalysts that revive volumes—and your own appetite for risk. Until then, keep an eye on the ICI survey every month; it has proven to predict market direction more reliably than most analyst notes.