COMMODITIES
Investors in Saudi Arabia, one of the world's top rice buyers, are looking for joint ventures with Thai partners to invest in rice farming in Thailand and Africa.
PHUSADEE ARUNMAS
AUTOMOBILE PARTS
The German automotive supplier Continental AG plans to invest 100 million euros or five billion baht building its first plant in Thailand, aiming to expand into Southeast Asian markets.
BANKING
Improved risk-management practices, higher profitability and a rapid selection of a new chief executive are the main priorities for ING Group for TMB Bank. Philippe Damas, chief executive of ING Retail Banking Asia, said that TMB needed to improve its loan quality.
PTT Plc, the country's largest oil and gas company, outperformed expectations for the first quarter of this year as oil prices surpassed forecasts. Even though the majority state-owned PTT took a hit of several billion baht from capping prices of petrol and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) _ and paid pipeline rental costs to the Finance Ministry for the first time in this first quarter _ the company still reported strong net profit growth of 15.8% year-on-year to 26.13 billion from 22.57 billion baht.
Establishing a sovereign wealth fund to invest foreign reserves more aggressively in overseas markets may not be possible in the short term, according to the Finance Ministry. Sovereign wealth funds have become increasingly popular among emerging economies and Middle Eastern countries as a means of increasing returns from their large foreign reserve holdings or oil revenues.
COMPETITIVENESS
Thai banks need to continue to cut costs to increase competitiveness, according to the Bank of Thailand. Bandid Nijathaworn, a central bank deputy governor, said regulators were ''concerned'' about the cost management practices of local banks in the face of growing competition in the global financial market.
ECO Cafe'
They're young, smart and casual. They want to work, but they don't want life to be all about work. Unlike their parents' generation, they have been showered with attention and are skilled in many activities. In other words, they are both high-performers and high-maintenance. I am talking about young workers in today's labour force.
Staff flexibility and the friendliness of the Thai people are among the factors that attract investors to Thailand, according to foreign business executives.
PROPERTY
Accor, Europe's biggest hotelier, aims to launch a new hotel brand, MGallery, in Thailand this year as part of its plan to add 12 hotels in the kingdom by 2010. The new boutique hotel with 154 rooms, located near Siam Square, is expected to welcome upscale guests starting in the fourth quarter of this year.
PROPERTY
The property developer BKK Home Rangsit Co plans to spend one billion baht to develop a condominium in Samrong and a resort in Chiang Mai in 2009 and 2010, according to managing director Wanvimol Polpanthin. She said the 30-room and 50-house Chiang Mai project would occupy a site covering 200 rai in Mae Thang district. In 2010, the company will develop 250 condominium units on a two-rai site near Imperial Samrong.
PROPERTY
Residential units near workplaces, prebuilt and second-hand homes in the city are in demand among residents of Bang Sue, Rama IX, Chaeng Watthana and Bang Buathong, according to research on purchasing behaviour by the Real Estate Information Centre (REIC). Witawat Rungruangphon of Thammasat University said most respondents in Bang Sue and Rama IX moved in order to be closer to their workplaces, while those in Bang Buathong and Chaeng Watthana relocated because they wanted to start families.
Hotel and restaurant operators yesterday renewed their call for a break on what they believe are unfair royalty fees charged by the entertainment company RS Plc for broadcasts of the Euro 2008 football tournament. Prakit Chinamourphong, president of the Thai Hotels Association, said that since the matches would be broadcast on the free TV channels 7 and 9, which would be able to earn advertising revenue, it would be unfair to charge royalty fees to hotels and restaurants.
Roche, one of the world's top research-focused health-care groups, yesterday opened its new Asia Pacific Regional Training Center in Bangkok with an investment of more than 50 million baht.
TEXTILES & GARMENTS
The garment manufacturer Sabina expects revenues to rise 10% this year to 2.2 billion baht thanks to higher sales in the local market under its own branch.
TRANSPORT & LOGISTICS
The Transport Ministry plans to propose to the cabinet next week a 150-billion-baht plan to develop a deep-sea port in the Deep South on the Andaman Sea in a bid to reduce logistics costs. The port, planned for Pak Bara in Satun province, would serve as a short-cut for goods bound for Europe and the Middle East that must now travel through Laem Chabang Port in the Gulf of Thailand.
TRANSPORT & LOGISTICS
Thai Somdej Logistics, a local logistics provider, is preparing to expand its free zone warehouse storage in Bang Pakong by 70% to increase its customer base. ''We can see a positive response in our storage, logistics and customs clearance service in our Bang Pakong Wyncoast free trade zone industrial area,'' said Picheat Chansate, Thai Somdej Logistics' managing director.
AVIATION
Thai Airways International has awarded a contract worth about US$500 million to Britain's Rolls-Royce to supply engines for its fleet of six Airbus A380 superjumbo aircraft.
SERVICES
TalkTime Asia, a Bangkok-based call-centre consultancy and training provider, forecasts the number of call centres in Thailand will increase to 397 this year, up 15% up from 317 last year. Managing director Deirdre Hutchinson said the call-centre industry in Thailand had grown by at least 15% a year in terms of agent seats, a trend likely to be sustained by new outsource vendors entering the market and the growth of outbound telemarketing and telesales centres.
Helped by surging revenue in the first quarter, Bangkok Dusit Medical Services, the country's largest hospital operator, projects revenue growth of at least 18% this year, with the bottom line expected to get even stronger over a year earlier.
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
The Information and Communications Technology minister yesterday set May 26 as the deadline for two state telecom enterprises to resolve the long-standing dispute about their failing Thai Mobile joint venture. He reasoned the CDMA operator could be left behind and even go bankrupt amid the race toward 3G among mobile-phone operators, especially after the National Telecommunications Commission gave them the green light.
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
Second-ranked mobile operator DTAC says it has bargained with CAT Telecom for permission to upgrade its existing network to third-generation (3G) in exchange for its agreement to resume using the state telecom enterprise's international direct dialling (IDD) gateways.
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
Samart Corp Plc yesterday reported a first-quarter profit of 144 million baht, a 300% increase from the fourth quarter last year but up only marginally from the same period a year ago. The communications equipment group said revenues declined to 4.22 billion baht from 6.29 billion in the same quarter last year due to a shift to its house-brand I-Mobile handsets.
ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT
Tirathai Plc, a producer of power transformers, posted first-quarter profits of 28.54 million baht, a sharp turnaround from losses of 37.66 million the same period last year. Revenues rose to 484.59 million baht in the first quarter, up from 184 million last year.
ELECTRONICS
Cal-Comp Electronics (Thailand) Plc (CCET) expects revenues to rise to 110 billion baht this year as it shifts away from component assembly work to finished product production. Naririn Tantisajjatham, a CCET director, told investors this week that the opening of its new $10 million plant in China in the fourth quarter would also help support revenue growth.
ELECTRICITY
Glow Energy, a private power producer, expects to receive environment impact assessment approval for its new coal-fired power plant under the new round of bidding for generation capacity by independent power producers (IPP) within the first half of this year. The company also hopes to sign a power purchase agreement for the output of its IPP plant with Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand in the first half of this year. The project is scheduled to begin construction around the middle of this year, with commercial operation starting at the end of 2011.
FOOD & BEVERAGES
ThaiBev details Oishi plans
