The King of Thailand endorsed Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra's new cabinet line-up on October 28.

The reshuffle has introduced several new politicians to the administration as well as moved several existing members to new portfolios.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Yingluck has instructed all concerned agencies to work with the private sector in preparing the country for the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) in 2015.

In a pre-recorded episode of her weekly TV programme "Yingluck Government Meets the People", the prime minister said she had chaired a second workshop for state agencies and the private and civil sectors on October 24. The aim was to follow up on various issues decided during the first meeting when all ministries had been assigned to assess Thailand 's readiness and competencies in relation to various ASEAN directives and regulations.

At the meeting, Yingluck said the government was briefed on the readiness of each industry-assessed state agency. The PM said she has ordered the ministries to jointly work with the private sector to re-evaluate readiness in all aspects and present information to the Cabinet within two weeks.

Prime Minister Yingluck added the government has outlined eight strategies to prepare the country for the AEC in the next three years. The strategies include promotion of competitiveness of products, services, trade, and investment; improvement of quality of life and social protection and development of basic infrastructure and logistics system to enhance connectivity among other improvements.

Yingluck said the Cabinet is committed to ensuring that the country is ready for the AEC at the national level and that four subcommittees will be set up to deal solely with the matter.-VNA