Chalongphob Sussangkarn

Chalongphob Sussangkarn (Thai: ฉลองภพ สุสังกร์กาญจน์, rtgs: Chalongphop Sutsangkan, born 1950) is a Thai economist. He was the President of the Thailand Development Research Institute and later served as Minister of Finance in Surayud Chulanont's military junta. An ethnic Chinese of Hainanese origin, He replaced Pridiyathorn Devakula after Pridiyathorn abruptly resigned. Chalongphob joined several other TDRI-affiliated individuals who had Cabinet-level seats in the junta, including Deputy Prime Minister and Industry Minister Kosit Panpiemras and Energy Minister Piyasvasti Amranand. Prior to joining the cabinet, Chalongphob had no experience in government and was an economist.

Education and career

Chalongphob received BA and PhD degrees from the University of Cambridge. After graduation, he taught at the Department of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley during 1977–79. He later joined the World Bank in Washington, D.C., where he served from 1979 to 1985. He then returned to Thailand to work as an economist at the Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI). Dr. Sussangkarn served as the President of TDRI from 1996 up until 2007. He resigned from the his post in early March 2007 in order to accept appointment as finance minister, replacing Pridiyathorn Devakula, who abruptly resigned. In February 2008, Sussangkarn returned to the TDRI to work as a researcher.

Chalongphob's policy stance was pro-business, and included:

• Being against the Surayud government's capital control policy,
• Support for greater liberalization of foreign investment in Thailand, and
• Being against the Thaksin government's populist economic policies.

• The Nation, Chalongphob a pro-market academic for a reeling economy 9 March 2007