Business

Thailand is cautiously heading to a phased reopening that is likely to kick-off this April but the doors may not fully open to welcome tourists until January 2022.

Awaiting cabinet scrutiny, the latest Ministry of Tourism and Sports’ staged recovery plan identifies four distinct opening phases starting with the “Wellness Leisure area Q and Hotel Q” due to start 1 April and continue to the end of May.

Wellness Leisure April to May

The five provinces that are eligible for relaxed quarantine rules are Phuket, Krabi, Surat Thani ( Samui, Tao and Phangan islands) Chonburi (Pattaya) and Chiang Mai.

Under its terms, visitors from the UAE, Israel, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and possibly India and Russia line up for less daunting quarantine rules.

Groups of one to four tourists get to stay confined in their room from day one to day three, followed by restricted access to specified hotel facilities from day four to 14. Hotels must be c…

People flocked to sell their gold at China town. The Gold Traders Association announced the buying and selling prices of gold has increased by 50 baht to a historic high.

The price of gold is currently high. The price of gold ornaments has reached nearing 29,000 baht, tempting people to sell.

The price of gold rose by Bt450 per baht weight in the morning trade on Tuesday (July 28), the Gold Traders Association reported.

As of 9.31am, the buying price of gold bars was Bt29,200 per baht weight and the selling price Bt29,300, while gold ornaments cost Bt28,667.56 and Bt29,800, respectively.

The price has increased by 1,200 baht since the beginning of the week, which is in line with the world market price, which has risen to a nine year high due to the concerns about the outbreak of COVID-19, which is affecting the growth of the global economy. It is also a result of the baht depreciation which has caused the price of gold in the count…

The Thai Rice Exporters Association cut its projection for 2020 rice exports from 7.5 million tonnes to 6.5 million tonnes, the lowest in a decade.

Thailand shipped 3.14 million tonnes of rice in the first six months of this year, down 32.7% from the same period last year, with an export value of US$2.2 billion, down 12% year-on year said the Thai Rice Exporters Association.

Based on those estimates Thailand could drop to the world’s third largest rice exporter, after Vietnam and India, due to a prolonged drought, which has affected rice output.

Thailand could drop to the world’s third largest rice exporter, after Vietnam and India. Photo by Tom Fisk on Pexels.com

A prolonged drought has caused first crop output to fall by about one million tonnes and second crop output to fall short by about four million tonnes.

Other negative factors include the strong baht currency, which is about ten percent higher than last year, causing t…

BANGKOK (NNT) – In addition to several projects and agreements approved in the Cabinet meeting yesterday, the government has agreed to accept a 5 million dollar U.S. grant from the World Bank to reduce emissions of hydrofluorocarbon gas (HFC), which is one of the greenhouse gases affecting the globe’s ozone layer.

A Deputy Government Spokesperson, Rachada Dhanadirek, disclosed that the Cabinet, at its meeting yesterday, approved an acceptance draft for a 5.084 million dollar grant from the World Bank, to fund projects reducing the emission of environmentally harmful HFC gas.

At the same meeting, the Cabinet approved a financial aid campaign for Myanmar, providing a 1.46 billion baht loan to fund Yangon’s electricity system renovation project, on the understanding that the project utilises goods and services from Thailand for at least 50 percent of the contract’s value, and must hire Thai companies for construction and engineering consultations.<…

Thailand’s internationally admired performance in the pandemic of the COVID-19 virus has showcasedthe exceptional strengths of the country’s health care system and medical industry to further justifyits drive towards becoming one of the world’s top medical hubs.

A sophisticated healthcare system, universal healthcare coverage and robust public health consciousness have all contributed to Thailand’s success in containing the pandemic of COVID-19 virus and reporting one of the world’s lowest mortality rates from the disease.

Johns Hopkins University’s 2019 Global Health Security Index 1 ranked Thailand as the world’s 6th best prepared country for confronting the pandemic, reflecting the country’s public health care system’s preparedness for coping with major public health emergencies such as the pandemic of the Covid-19 virus.

Thailand ranks as the best country to have recovered from COVID-19 in Asia and ranks second among 184 countries recov…

Amid the rising adoption of cleaner cars around the globe, the Thailand Board of Investment (BOI) has already approved 24 projects by car makers to produce in the country electric vehicles of all types.

This includes hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) and battery electric vehicles (BEVs), with a combined capacity of over 500,000 units per year, BOI data shows.

With the ongoing shift towards EV in the global, regional and domestic markets, Thailand is counting on its strong foundation in the automotive and support sectors, as well as its strategic location, and comprehensive investment incentives to attract car makers investment in EV manufacturing.

The approved projects include Mitsubishi Motors (Thailand) Co., Ltd.’s 5.48 billion baht investment to upgrade the company’s existing car production line at Laem Chabang Industrial Estate to allow the annual production from 2023 of a total of 39,000 vehicles…

The global Covid-19 outbreak has had serious negative effects on commercial real estate, including flexible space. Of late, many operators have experienced the flexible nature of the business working against them, as many occupiers have opted to surrender desks and implement work-from-home plans.

This is particularly true of freelancers, start-ups and SMEs. Demand from corporate occupiers has been more mixed. Generally, flexible space with open plan and dense centre layouts is viewed as a higher risk. But in some markets, corporates have taken additional flexible space to satisfy business continuity and disaster recovery requirements.

As corporates return to the workplace, we expect to see them continue to leverage flexible space for these purposes, as well as for split teams and de-densification requirements. Thus, companies enable their employees to work remotely in better connected and more productive workspaces compared to home.

Landlord…

History shows that the deepest economic and social changes occur in the aftermath of major crises, catastrophes or conflicts. They have catalytic, disruptive effects on existing orders, creating new realities and different ways of thinking about the future. East Asia is now in an important phase of its history.

There is currently an understandable preoccupation with how quickly the East Asian economy can recover from the COVID-19 crisis. At the same time, it is crucial to keep in mind how future generations will look back at this period and judge our actions — and inactions.

This moment in history will ultimately be framed both by what preceded it and what came after. Was the chance taken in the 2020s to put the region’s economy on a more sustainable path? This could prove to be the most defining decade of the 21st century.

The COVID-19 crisis is occurring at a time of fervent populist nationalism when the prospects of reliving a late-1…

Former international crime prosecutor, Mr. Wanchai Roujanavong predicted in a Facebook post that many corruption cases will emerge as a result of THAI’s rehabilitation process.

He claimed that the airline’s fleet was leased to THAI through several agents, allegedly with the consent of the airline’s board, leading to prohibitively high fees for the rental of aircraft, which is said to be one of the causes of the airline’s heavy losses.

Without the proposed rehabilitation plan, the former chief prosecutor said that that the public would probably never know the truth “while the parasites carried on sucking the blood out of the airline.”

Discrepancies in THAI ticket sales

In related news by the Bangkok Post, police have launched an investigation into allegations of discrepancies in THAI ticket sales last year, according to an unnamed source.

A team led by Pol Lt Gen Charnthep Sesaves, a former Metropolitan Police Bureau commissioner…

Even before the outbreak of COVID-19, the level of global debt was high by historic standards. According to the Institute of International Finance, by late 2019 global debt (including private and public debt) was more than US$250 trillion.

Public debt, in particular, has increased everywhere since the global financial crisis of 2008.

IMF calculations show that public debt ratios in almost 90 per cent of advanced economies are higher than before 2008. Emerging markets on average have seen such ratios increase to levels similar to those seen during the crises of the 1980s and 1990s. Public debt has also built up in low-income countries with two-fifths at high risk of debt distress.

How much global debt has been added on the back of the COVID-19 health emergency? Focusing only on low-income and emerging economies, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva reckoned that US$2.5 trillion was a ‘very conservative, low-end estimate’ of their …