Thailand entered the New Year without Y2K
problems
Deputy Prime Minister Dr. Trairong Suwankhiri,
Chairman of Thailand's National Y2K Coordinating Committee
presented the first official report after midnight via live
audio conference to Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri
Sirindhorn and Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai who attended the
New Year celebration at Trang Province. At 1:30 a.m. of January
1st, 2000, he reconfirmed to the press that all
public agencies reported no Y2K-related problems to National
Y2K Command Center. .
The reports came from Y2K command centers
of all government agencies and all 76 provinces nationwide.
The four major super-critical sectors, namely: power and energy,
telecommunication and transportation, finance, and public
security, began the new year without Y2K glitch. This message
was also confirmed in the live-video conferences between Deputy
Prime Minister Dr. Trairong and Y2K command centers of Ministry
of Interior, Ministry of Transport and Communication, Telephone
Organization of Thailand, and the Petroleum Authority of Thailand.
Furthermore, there had been no report of any large-scale inconveniences
in other sectors.
Dr. Trairong stated that approximately 80%
of the 962 calls to national Y2K command center between 10.00
a.m. of December 31st, 1999 until 1.00 a.m. of
January 1st, 2000, were inquiries about Y2K in
general. The other 20% were reported incidents. However, follow
ups of these incidents so far, have not linked them to Y2K
problems. Some of these were related to scheduled temporary
shut down of services during the cross over. For example,
several banks announced that their ATM services were suspended
for a few hours before midnight to back up their systems.
The absence of major disturbances is evidenced
that the investment for solving Y2K problems had paid off,
said Dr. Trairong. He thanked all public agencies for their
cooperation and their commitment, which have prevented disastrous
economic and social losses.
National Y2K command center will continue to monitor the
situation until January 4th, 2000, and again, at
the end of February to maintain precaution and to ensure that
no problem occurs.
Reported by
Thailand National Y2K Command Center
1 January 2000 at 4:00 am.