In the past, the institute that supervised the trade competition in many countries started as a state agency. This trend also applied to Thailand where such institute was subordinate to the Department of Internal Trade, the Ministry of Commerce since B.E. 2542.

The division of work was divided into 3 sections which are the cooperation of 3 offices in the Department of Internal Trade.

1) The Secretary Section (Bureau of Market System Promotion and Administration)

2) The Investigation and Operation Section (Bureau of Inspection and Operation)

3) The Legal Section (Bureau of Legal Affairs)

The operation of the three offices was dependent on the main duty which was to work in correspondence with the primary task of the Department of Internal Trade.

Since the administration on trade competition was not considered to be an urgent task for the Department of Internal Trade, therefore, the human resource and budget management were at the inferior level in terms of importance. Moreover, there were overlaps and conflicts during the supervision of the just competition stemmed from the exercising of administrative power in compliance with the Government’s policies.

On 5th October 2017, the “Trade Competition Act B.E. 2560” became effective and established the Trade Competition Commission as an independent state agency that was attached to neither the Government nor the State Enterprise. The Trade Competition Commission is a juristic person who is autonomous on the matter of personnel, budget ,and administration. Its budget is from the support of government and it is also capable of collecting the income which later becomes the expenditure for their office management. This system is responsive to the universal standard for the management of organizations that supervise the area of trade competition which is supposed to be an independent agency that is entitled to operate their personnel, budget, and management freely such as Japan and South Korea.

There are several reasons to establish the Trade Competition Commission as an independent agency. Firstly, with independence, the Commission can operate and support the trade competition freely without any interference and be able to execute their works effectively and efficiently. Moreover, it is intended that the Commission should have a transparent, consistent and sufficient source of the budget for the supervision and administration for the trade competition. Furthermore, the Trade Competition Council was expected to have a brand-new administrative method so to push the organization’s administration forward with activeness and promptness. In terms of the structure of work, the Council should have the working process which emphasizes flexibility and creates spontaneous learning, so to encourage its personnel to become more active and strive for new knowledge that is beneficial for their jobs. According to Section 28 of the Trade Competition Act B.E. 2560, it is stated that the location of the headquarter should be in Bangkok or other nearby provinces, for the location of branches, it could be any places. The headquarters is situated on the 5th Floor, Car Park Building 5th Floor (BC)

120 The Government Complex Commemorating His Majesty the King 80th Birthday Anniversary, 5th December, B.E. 2550 (2007) Chaeng Wattana Road, Thungsong-Hong, Laksi, Bangkok 10210