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IN Brief
FINANCE : Credit card spending fell 0.1% in May from April, primarily due to declines in overseas spending, according to the data released yesterday by the Bank of Thailand.
Outstanding cards totalled 12.23 million at the end of May, up 133,069 from the previous month. Card spending totalled 73.53 billion baht, down 72.54 million from the previous month. Domestic spending was 53.77 billion baht, up 664.85 million, while overseas spending dropped 737.39 million baht to 3.17 billion.
Cash advances in May totalled 16.58 billion baht, a decline of 0.63% from April. Outstanding card credit was 176.75 billion baht, an increase of 451.02 million.
The central bank said personal loan accounts totalled 10.98 million as of May, an increase of 45,662. Outstanding loans for personal loan accounts totalled 210.7 billion baht, up 1.54 billion from the previous month.
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Organic potential
FOOD : Thai food producers should consider more investment in organic products to meet high world demand, says Yutthasak Supasorn, the director of the National Food Institute (NFI).
The market value of global organic food industry will hit 2.2 trillion baht in 2012, a 53.6% increase from 2007, according to the NFI. In 2006, Thailand's organic food industry was worth 947 million baht with 45% serving the export market.
"Local operators have the ability to have more profit from this trend by investing more in developing a process to produce organic food," he said.
However, most organic products exported from Thailand are non-processed farm goods such as rice, herbs, fruits and vegetables.
"Instead of focusing on labour-intensive and inexpensive raw material products, we should expand more product lines in processed organic food to add more value," Mr Yutthasak said.
Europe is the biggest organic food market, consuming 51.4% of world demand, followed by the United States with 44.6%.
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New Bovis chief
CONSTRUCTION : Bovis Lend Lease has appointed Robert Gunnell to run the company's operations in Thailand.
Mr Gunnell has more than 30 years in the construction and property industry. He has worked in a variety of locations including Thailand, the UK, Nigeria, Hong Kong, China and, most recently, Dubai. His experience encompasses the hospitality, infrastructure, commercial, airport, transport and water treatment sectors.
He joins the Thai business from Bovis Lend Lease in Dubai where he led a team negotiating the commercial and contractual agreement of the Trump International Hotel and Tower.
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