BHUBANESWAR, Oct 5: The Opposition Janata Dal in Orissa has described Chief Minister J B Patnaik's visit to Thailand as a ``pleasant outing'' timed to enjoy the Puja vacations in the Thai market where a glut prevails.

Patnaik, heading a delegation, left New Delhi today for a week-long visit to Thailand and Indonesia apparently to attract foreign investment worth Rs 23,000 crore.

Leader of the Opposition Ashok Das, in a statement released here, observed that this visit wouldn't be much unlike his four previous foreign visits from which ``the state gained nothing''.

He expressed surprise over the fact that the team was visiting a country whose economy was in bad shape.

The team accompanying the Chief Minister includes Deputy Chief Minister B K Biswal, Industry Minister Niranjan Patnaik and nine government officials.

According to official sources, several projects in the infrastructure sector will be finalised during the visit.

The Chief Minister will hold discussions with the International Sea Port (ISP), Precious Shipping Company and the Bang Packing Industrial Park. The discussions will cover projects which include the Dhamra port, an industrial park in the port area and a mega paper mill with a total investment of Rs 3000 crore.

Das said the Thailand trip, like the Chief Minister's earlier trips to Israel, Europe, USA and Japan, would only ``enrich Patnaik's propaganda arsenal'' to ``fool his gullible audience with spicy election speeches''.

He maintained that the process of spurious economic liberalisation unleashed by the Euro-American axis and abetted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had pushed Thailand into industrial glut and recession. Thailand has turned into a ``graveyard of an artificial economic boom, social degeneration and all-pervasive corruption,'' he said adding, ``We hope the Chief Minister does not come back with a package of any of these deadly components,'' he added. Criticising the State Government for hastily signing a Memorandum of Understanding with the ISP for the Dhamra Port project, Das warned that the Government would be put in the dock for its irregularities.

He also alleged that investment by a Thai company for a mega paper plant in Orissa was ``wishful thinking'', particularly when the existing paper mills were struggling for survival.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.