The True Group will not take part in the auction of the 1800MHz licences, according to a company’s statement yesterday.

The group’s co-president in charge of commercial operations Kittinut Tikawan said that the management had decided that it should not take part in the bidding, given that its existing 55MHz spectrum bandwidth is enough to keep its comparative advantage in the long run.

Moreover, when taking into consideration the starting bid price in the upcoming auction, it believes that the price does not help the bid winners in gaining advantages over other telecom operators in the market.

In addition, True will not join the bid just for the purpose of raising the bid price to an unrealistic high level and to add financial burden on the bid winners.

TrueMove H Universal Communication, which is True Corp’s cellular operator, and the subsidiaries of Advanced Info Service and Total Access Communication picked up a total of five bid documents for 1800MHz licences on May 14, the first day the bid documents were made available to prospective bidders.

They have to submit the application forms on June 15 to participate in the NBTC’s licensing auction, scheduled for August 4.

TMALL BACKS THAI FEST

The Alibaba Group is continuing its commitment to bring high-quality products from Thailand to consumers in China through its support of the Thai Festival in Shanghai 2018 and a three-day online flash sales of Thai food products in collaboration with various Thai government agencies.

Hosted by the Royal Thai Consulate-General in Shanghai from May 18 to 20, the festival aims to promote Thailand’s unique culture including food and entertainment and will feature a first-of-its-kind “durian buffet” for local durian lovers, among other programmes.

Tmall Fresh, the Alibaba-owned fresh food e-commerce platform, together with Juhuasuan, a sales and marketing platform for flash sales under Tmall, will promote Thailand’s premium tropical fruits in the offline event.

In a special on-stage session today, the platforms will share their unique insights into the world of Thailand’s king of fruits – durians, and provide a glimpse of the 120-hour journey of fresh Monthong durians from Thailand’s Chanthaburi province to China, to demonstrate the stringent quality requirements for durians sold through the Tmall platform.

Citing the latest findings of Workforce Experience 2020, Michael Koons, senior vice president for global system engineering and technology, said in an interview that the survey shows six trends will likely dominate the workforce of the future.

Due to the disruptive technologies, today’s workers are increasingly mobile, contract-based and technology-savvy so companies have to re-manage their real estate and office space as well as the work environment to meet the new demands, especially among millennial workers.

Otherwise, employers may lose their talents to competitors who are more adaptive in re-engaging their employees whose habits and preferences have changed.

According to Koons, the so-called “Gig” economy has emerged resulting in more flexibility in the labour market with a focus on skill sets instead of long-term employment so more workers will be hired on a contractual basis or as freelancers.

Freelancers are forecast to account for as much as 40 per cent of all workers in the US in 2020 as the new generation of workers prefer “purchase orders” to salary, short-term relationship, no work relocation, flexibility, better work-life balance and digital platforms for freelance marketplaces.

Second, the new trend is “Shared Workspaces” meaning that less office space is needed to accommodate more workers using digital and other new technologies.

The new generation of workers also do not need a fixed workspace since they prefer to bring their own computing devices such as notebooks. In other words, corporate real estate is becoming an “office as a service” which is leasable by the hour, day or month.

This trend will boost corporate flexibility and efficiency. Koons cited Cisco as an example that its real estate and office portfolio has decreased by 30 per cent amid a 15-per-cent increase in workers during 2012-2017 due to the workforce transformation programme.

Third, the “Augmented Workforce” will be here due to the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation with 25 per cent of customer service and support operations forecast to be taken over by virtual assistants and bots.

Fourth, Virtual Reality (VR) technology such as VR goggle is now practical for remote employees to join tele-conferences in a more participatory format.

VR is also beneficial for immersive training and educational experiences while VR simulation lowers the cost of prototyping new products.

Fifth, the “Sensing Workplace” is coming up with the use of big data to provide new meeting rooms that, for example, are capable of adapting to different needs of various users as pre-ordered.

This will deliver better experiences for workers based on their preferences while helping to retain talents.

Sixth, “Digital Twins” is the new trend for the evolving workforce as creation of a digital replica of crucial assets such as oil rigs or power plants allow companies to increase work safety by taking advantage of predictive analytics for pro-active maintenance management of these costly assets.

To boost workers’ engagement, especially among millennials, the survey shows that freedom on work location is a key factor since workers’ dead time can be avoided. Another key factor of increased engagement is to facilitate personal preferences for a better work-life balance.

Its first batch of farm exports comprise yellow sweet potato, purple sweet potato, dragon fruit, dried fruits, and rice paper.

It follows joint efforts by the supermarket and farmers in provinces of Lam Dong and Binh Thuan and other places to meet the quality requirements of business partners.

Phidsanu Pongwatana, managing director of MM Mega Market Vietnam, said: “As soon as we got the export licence, we moved quickly to understand the needs of our business partners in Thailand and look for domestic goods with a competitive edge that we can supply.

“This does not only offer a richly diversified and competitive source of supply to the Big C system in Thailand, but can also help Vietnamese farmers bring their quality agricultural products to other countries in the region.”

While dragon fruit is the main item in the consignment, it also has more than 45 tonnes of sweet potatoes.

The purchasing division in Thailand has said Vietnamese agricultural products have unique advantages, especially sweet potatoes, whose supply is reliable and offers high quality and safety standards.

Vietnamese farm products are therefore likely to see large orders and for long terms.

“In addition to steady orders of over 100 tonnes a month, we are also working on exporting an average of 50 tonnes of frozen catfish filet a month,” Pongwatana said.

He said the potential for Vietnamese exports looked great because of the 700-plus malls and supermarket distribution channel of Big C.

MM Mega Market Vietnam’s export strategy is built on a professional platform system and direct interaction with farmers to create a quality and diverse source of supply.

These facilities, which also include warehouses, not only supply the company’s 19-store domestic distribution system but also help provide quality products for exports.

Besides exporting, MM also provides technical assistance and market research to local exporters trying to reach the Thai market.

It helped export more than 1,200 tonnes of dragon fruit and several other agricultural products last year. — VNS

That will not obstruct interested and related persons on digital asset services with proper mechanism for investor protection.

The emergency decree on digital asset businesses came into force on May 14 with the SEC as the authority to regulate the issuance and offer of digital tokens to the general public, and digital asset businesses. The securities watchdog also has the power to set related criteria, procedures and conditions.

The SEC has distributed documents on a public hearing for proper regulations to allow those seeking benefits from digital assets to do so legally, as well as protecting investors from frauds, being taken advantages of, and prevent money laundering.

Based on the legal conditions, digital tokens will be offered after a filing of information and prospectus with the SEC’s approval. The offer must be made through ICO portal approved by the SEC.

The public hearing, which will end on May 30, will deal with issues ranging from criteria on approval for offer of digital tokens, qualifications of ICO portals and eligiblity criteria for investors in digital assets.

In regard to the criteria for approval of digital tokens, they will be offered by companies established under Thai laws. The SEC will take all information into consideration in order to thwart-fund raisers who are not following the regulatory criteria or wanting to take advantages of investors.

ICO portals which will screen digital tokens and their filings, will also be required to register as companies set up under Thai laws with a minimum registered capital of Bt5 million.

The directors and executives of fund-raisers and ICO portals’ must be honest individuals. ICO portals must also have a system for due diligence, screening fund raisers and business plans, inspection of smart contract’s source code, Know-Your-Client (KYC) process and suitability tests for retail investors.

Besides, the public hearing will ask for comments on the need for an approval system on additional fund mobilisation after the one-time approval, aside from the normal approval system for offering, as an alternative for fund raisers.

Retail investors who have been approved for digital token investment are allowed to invest no more than Bt300,000 each in each offer. The maximum value of each offer for retail investors will be scrutinised.

The regulations on digital asset businesses will cover digital asset trade centres, digital asset brokers and digital asset dealers and all must gain Ministry of Finance’s approval and meet SEC regulatory requirements.

These proposed regulations will consider sufficient funding sources, security system and risk management against robbery, KYC system and preventive measures for money-laundering.

The digital asset business operators will be able to trade digital assets through cryptocurrencies determined by the SEC in the baht only.

SEC Secretary-General Rapee Sucharitakul said that notification on the public hearing on the digital currencies has been made to cope with the emergency decree on digital asset businesses and will accept comments from all sectors in order to reach a finalisation within three to four weeks.

An anonymous source from an ICO fund raiser said that after the launch of the criteria on the trading of digital currencies, the prices of digital coins have been dropping continuously in Thailand.

The source also expressed concerns over the emergency decree , saying that ICOs in Thailand will not grow, given the obstacles would discourage fund raising through ICOs in the country.

After the emergency decree, several fund raisers through ICOs have mobilised fund abroad particularly in British Virgin Island which collects no tax on fund raising and coin traders, and allows coins to be traded by Thai investors.

Currently, South Korea is Thailand’s 10th largest trading country and Thailand is South Korea’s 15th largest trading nation. South Korea is Thailand’s 12th largest investment country which is considered as too low  given  South Korea’s technology advancement and expertise, he said.

The ministry will also draft a new law regarding regulatory sandbox, which will set a period for start-ups to experiement their operations  before they are allowed to fully expand their a scope of services or business.

Thailand is alreadyissuing  one-year stay visa for foreign businessmen who run start-up companies in the Thailand, he said.