“Since the unofficial opening of the ITC at Klow Nam Thai eight months ago, 3,800 SMEs have joined the centre and also 100 innovative products worth up to Bt50 million have been developed at the centre,” Uttama said.

The centre would collaborate with Japanese firms in training and support Thai SMEs in four target groups, including raw material innovation, bio-innovation, logistics and e-commerce, he said.

Critical health care for heart-attack, stroke and accident victims revolves around providing proper health care during the first hour, as this has been proven to significantly increase the survival rate.

Helicopters can play an important role in ensuring rapid transport of medical teams to the site, or evacuation of patients within the so-called “golden hour”.

Health-care operations in Thailand are predominantly pre-, post- and inter-hospital transport operations. Apart from the Thai Sky Doctors initiative, helicopters are infrequently used to land as close as possible to an incident to drop off medical teams or to evacuate patients.

Dr Chula Sukmanop, director general of CAAT, said: “We envisage a two-step approach. The first is to be able to rescue patients with helicopters from multiple pre-approved sites in strategic locations under the current regulatory framework. The second is to be able to rescue patients from any place in Thailand in line with the European system.”

Flt Lt Dr Atchariya Pangma, secretary general of NIEM, said: “HEMS can help reduce the number of fatalities as a result of health incidents and road accidents, particularly in difficult-to-reach or congested locations, which are prevalent in Thailand. This brings us closer to our vision of a standardised emergency medical system providing universal access to everyone and with the cooperation of all sectors.”

Director general Henrik Hololei, mobility and transport chief at the European Union, said: “Europe is committed to its partnership with Thailand, and through the European Aviation Safety Agency, we are proud to support CAAT’s ongoing regulatory work. Safe HEMS operations will support tourism, accelerate the development of aviation business and entail the education of highly skilled aero-medical personnel in the country.”

The Revenue Department issued the call as its director general, Prasong Poontaneat, also said the department is investigating suspected tax evasion at a controversial market in Don Mueang district.

Prasong yesterday met 250 representatives of accounting firms in Bangkok and broadcast the conference to tax officials and accountants nationwide. He called on the accountants to support the department plan’s by passing on its advice to their clients.

With as many as 800,000 small businesses operated by individuals or families across the country, the department wants their owners to register the businesses as corporate entities.

The government has extended tax allowances for them until the end of this year. They will be exempted from value-added tax payment, Prasong said.

In an effort to assuage concerns over tax payments at a rate, Prasong assured the accountants that their clients would benefit greatly from the new status.

Individuals pay personal income tax at rates between 5 and 35 per cent, depending on their income. The first Bt150,000 in income is exempted from tax.

However, small businesses will be exempted from tax for the first Bt300,000 booked as profits.

Amounts between Bt300,000 and Bt3 million will be subject to a tax rate of 15 per cent. Profits that exceed Bt3 million incur the top rate in corporate income tax of 20 per cent.

Most small businesses pay at only the 15 per cent rate, Prasong said.

“We aim to bring more than 100,000 of them on board,” he said. The target groups include retailers, gold and jewellery traders and sellers of construction material.

Prasong said the owners of pharmacies are awaiting a change of regulations at the Public Health Ministry that will enable an automatic process for the changeover in licences from individual ownership to corporate entities.

The Revenue Department has in recent years launched campaigns for businesses to register as corporate entities, but it estimates that only 70,000 business owners have switched over to the status of company, ordinary partnership or limited partnership.

Among the 17,000 gold traders, 15,000 of them have recently registered as corporate entities, said Prasong.

In a related development, tax officials are investigating allegations of tax evasion by traders at the “Talatmai Don Mueang “market, where police have been investigating into substandard food supplements and cosmetics products. There have also been allegations of mafia figures extorting money from traders. Prasong warned that tax-collection efforts would be stepped up, resulting in severe penalties against offenders, including asset seizures.

The industry lobby sees room for an increase – from Bt2.44 per unit – to a level below that which starts to affect ordinary consumers.

If the purchase price is not increased, the amount of electricity produced from renewable energy will not reach the official target of 19,000 megawatts by 2036, as set out in the Power Development Plan (PDP), FTI chairman Suphan Mongkolsuthree said yesterday.

Suphan made the comments after talks between Energy Minister Siri Jirapongphan and the FTI on the government’s policy to postpone its planned purchases of electricity produced from renewable energy. The policy excludes the output from plants producing electricity from waste.

Siri said that the Ministry of Energy has focused on electricity produced from renewable sources but had shifted its position to now buy electricity produced from such sources at a price below or equal to the grid parity. The government needed to be firm on this view in order to avoid increasing the price burden on ordinary people, the minister said.

Suphan said that only big producers of power from renewable energy or processing plants with sufficient material left to generate electricity would be able to accept an electricity wholesale price of Bt2.44 per unit.

Small power producers that buy fuel from other operators would not be able produce electricity at that price, given the higher production costs. Suphan cited the production costs of more than Bt3 per unit at a typical biogas power plant.

“Currently, the electricity price that people pay averages out at Bt4 per unit,” he said. “The purchase price of Bt2.44 per unit is still far from the selling price. Therefore, the government may raise the purchase price for electricity produced by renewable energy so that renewable energy power producers will survive and ordinary people will still not be affected.”

Suphan urged the government to determine the reference price, or the upper-limit price, for power producers to make their decision.

“The declining support measures for electricity production by renewable energy have encouraged more large renewable energy power producers to gradually turn to overseas markets for their investments,” he said.

“SMEs will face difficulties as they cannot flee the local market to make overseas investments. The private sector has agreed on a gradual decline in support measures to ensure no impact on people’s electricity cost, but only at a rate at which Thai producers can survive.”

Siri said the ministry would look into the problems faced by the affected small biogas power producers. This would be done on an individual basis in order to find relief measures for them, while supporting the use of floating solar installations in reservoirs for highly efficient electricity generation.

Suphan asked that the ministry proceed with gradual policy implementation, with an adequate adjustment period for operators. He also called on officials to carry out their supervision of the sector with fairness and transparency.

Somphop Prompanapitak, chief operating officer of Thai Solar Energy Plc (TSE), and Cherdsak Wattanavijitkul, president at TPC Power Holding Plc (TPCH), agree with the FTI’s position.

They fear the government’s new policy on purchase of electricity from renewable energy could lead to a suspension in some companies’ operations, with widespread impact on related businesses across the supply chain.

If the government does not make purchases of electricity produced from renewable energy in the next five years, the industry would be hit hard, Somphop said. The executive shared the view that some operations would be suspended and operators burdened with slower growth.

Somphop also agreed that some bigger operators would turn to investments in overseas markets in order to survive. This could exacerbate capital outflows in the future, he said.

Somphop said that TSE has made more overseas investment to mitigate the risks over the past two to three years. Previously, the company had relied mainly on the government’s electricity purchases. The company runs renewable energy power plants of almost 200 megawatts in Japan.

Locally, the company has expanded its business through mergers and acquisitions relating to power plants in operation, while focusing more on roof-top solar energy productions.

Cherdsak urged the government to review its long-term policy in several dimensions, including assistance to farmers and to ensure energy stability.

Cherdsak said the company plans to grow in the next two years, given its power purchase agreement for over 120 megawatts. It is preparing to bid for special projects with total power production of 300 megawatts in the three southernmost provinces.

Amorn Sapthaweekul, deputy chief executive officer of Energy Absolute Plc (EA), said that power producers wanted certainty in policy from the government. Uncertainties could affect business plans in the future, Amorn said.

However, the government’s top economics official concedes he has concerns over how the country will square up to the challenges posed by the transition to a digital economy.

Speaking after the opening of the Money Expo 2018 event yesterday, Somkid said: “If GDP (gross domestic product) expands 4 per cent this year, that will move the country forward. Currently, Thai economic indicators in both consumption and investment are all positive. Foreign investment has risen impressively.”

The economy expanded 1 per cent in 2014 and 3.9 per cent in 2017.

Next week, government representatives from Macau, Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore will visit Thailand – with economic matters sure to be high on the agenda.

However, Thailand continues to face challenges and Somkid flagged that his biggest concern is the country’s preparedness for the digital economy – an issue on which he had not previously aired doubts.

“In the future, digital technology will change everything and for those who do not follow the trend, they will face difficulties,” he said.

The government has been accelerating its investment in digital technology and infrastructure, he said, urging collaboration between the private and public sectors.

Other challenges present in the form of economic changes in trading partners and shift in geopolitics, along with Thailand’s weak competitiveness, he said.

Attention in the real economy should be focused particularly on the financial sector, which will drive the economy and help it catch up with technological changes and the transition to a cashless society, he said.

“The government realises the importance of these things and wants to promote them, while the supervisory units must catch up with the trends and not just prohibit everything. Though they should try to reduce risks. The private sector has to get prepared,” Somkid said.

In regard to the country’s efforts on Big Data, the public and private sectors should collaborate for greater efficiency and effectiveness in several industries.

Yesterday at Money Expo 2018, which runs until Sunday at Impact Mueang Thong Thani, banks, non-bank financial institutions, insurance companies, brokerages houses and fund firms presented their best deals.

The offerings extend from housing loans with zero interest for one year, reverse mortgages with zero interest for two years and step-up special deposit rates at 4 per cent to SME loans with interest rates of 1 per cent.

The Government Saving Bank is offering zero per cent interest for the first year of its mortgages l and a deposit interest rate up to four per cent. Bank of Ayudhya if offering a 0.5 per cent rate for the first six months of its mortgages, while Siam Commercial Bank offers a fix interest rate of 3.7 per cent for the first two years for its mortgages.

The event’s organisers expects financial transactions from the expo will exceed the Bt116.3 billion generated at last year’s event.