The Government Lottery Office (GLO) has announced plans to bundle the tickets and sell them directly to retailers.

GLO spokesman Thanawat Pholvichai conceded that three years of law enforcement aimed at punishing those who sell the tickets for more than the controlled price of Bt80 each had failed. Addressing a public hearing on the bundling plan before 600 people in Chiang Mai yesterday, Thanawat described as another failure a move to increase the number of tickets released from 37 million to 80 million.

The government and many civil groups do not want to see any further increases in the supply of tickets due to concerns over the impact of gambling on society. Also, an oversupply of tickets could cause losses for many retailers, Thanawat warned.

Chief among the new measures planned by the GLO to tackle over-pricing is the bundling of the tickets for direct sale to retailers.

Thanawat said that under the proposed new arrangement, five tickets with the same set of six-digit numbers have the chance to win the first prize of Bt30 million, and each of these tickets would carry a first-prize value of Bt6 million. Retailers would have the option to sell the five tickets as a bundle or split them for sale as individual tickets.

Phansak Khamkaew, a social activist who runs a knowledge centre in Lampang province, said that the option for the bundling of the tickets would not solve the problem of over-pricing,

The question is, said Phansak, what the GLO would do next if this latest strategy again ends in failure.

Thanawat countered that if the GLO bundles 70 per cent of the tickets, this may solve the problem. If not, the GLO could introduce an online-based lottery.

However, people would lose jobs if the GLO switched to online ticket sales, he said.

Ticket-bundling proposal

Many participants in the meeting expressed their support for the ticket-bundling proposal.

Currently, middlemen gather lottery tickets from large numbers of retailers, then bundle the same numbers for re-sale to them at higher prices. All these steps in the chain lead to higher prices for ticket buyers, Thanawat said.

Currently, the GLO sells 80 million tickets twice a month, without bundling them. But middlemen bundle about 70 per cent of the total tickets.

Lamyong Kannai, who represents a disabled group in Chiang Mai province, urged the GLO to provide bundle tickets to the disabled first in order to raise their living standards.

Sawang Kaewkantha, executive director of ThaiCivil Fund, a social activist organisation in Chiang Mai, suggested the GLO and the government should focus on how revenue from lottery ticket sales should be spent.

As many of the people buy the tickets regularly are poor, the government should allocate 15 per cent of the sales to initiatives that support lower-income groups, he said.

The GLO will hold more public hearings before proposing that the GLO board decide in June on whether the agency will introduce ticket bundling.

The agency may first introduce bundle measures in second half of the year, Thanawat added.

He said that, so far, most of those who have attended public hearings – including in Bangkok on Monday – supported the GLO plan to bundle the tickets.

For the year to date, foreign investors have made net sales of Bt92.33 billion on the SET.

Phillip Securities (Thailand) vice president Teerada Charnyingyong said foreign investors, increasingly concerned about conflict between the US and Iran, had sold energy stocks on Tuesday, while local investors were also concerned about the government’s delay in opening the bidding process for the construction of a high-speed rail project.

Both of these factors had led them to dilute their investment in the SET, she added.

However, she expressed confidence that the SET Index on Wednesday would continue to remain above 1,750 points.

The Joint Standing Committee on Commerce, Industry and Banking (JSCCIB) held firm on the projections at its May meeting. The low end of its estimated range for growth in gross domestic product is 4 per cent and, for exports, 5 per cent.

Suphan Mongkolsuthree, the Federation of Thai Industries’ (FTI) chairman who chaired the JSCCIB meeting this month, said that exports and tourism had continued to expand. The committee expects economic expansion of 4 per cent for the first quarter of this year.

Suphan flagged as areas of concern the disputes between the United States and many of its trading partners, the uncertainties over the future of a deal to curb Iran’s nuclear plans, and the pace of increases by the US Federal Reserve in its benchmark interest rates.

The JSCCIB expects, at least initially, a limited impact from the trade disputes on Thai exports in 2018, adding that the Fed’s rates decisions could increase volatility in currencies, Suphan said.

He said that the JSCCIB would monitor progress on investments in Thailand, particularly those by the government on infrastructure projects that could begin to flow in the second and third quarters – the latter half of this fiscal year. The committee would also keep an eye on movements in the prices of agricultural products.

The JSCCIB has expressed concern over a proposal by the Federation of Accounting Professions to the National Accounting Body (NAB) for a switch to the TFRS9 accounting standard at the start of next year.

The JSCCIB said expected to see “high impacts to Thailand’s economy” from the proposal and has written to NAB to request that the implementation date be moved back to January 1, 2022. It wants the NAB and related public agencies to take time to study the impact of the change in accounting standards in all its dimensions.

The committee has also urged the state sector to invite businesses, such as those in the leasing and hire purchase fields, to join a proposed subcommittee to study the potential of impact of the change.

Meanwhile, the public sector should accelerate the consideration of Thailand’s position – looking at the advantages and disadvantages – to joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), said Suphan. This was needed so that Thailand would not lose an opportunity to gain benefits from the free-trade agreement.

The CPTPP is a trade deal that has been agreed in principle between Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.

Separately, TMB Analytics forecasts that the Monetary Policy Committee will increase the policy rate in the second half of this year, after the country’s inflation rate rose to 1.07 per cent in April. This is approaching the Bank of Thailand’s inflation target of an average 1.1 per cent for this year.

“Corporates and entrepreneurs have to manage their financial cost before the country’s interest rate rises in the second half of this year,” TMB Analytics said.

In response to news on social media involving the central bank’s loss, BOT assistant governor Chantavarn Sucharitakul denied that it had engaged in currency speculation. However, the BOT had bought foreign currency in order to prevent the baht appreciating too quickly, she said.

The increase in foreign reserves followed an influx of foreign capital as a result of several consecutive years of current-account surpluses and foreign direct investment, she said.

When the baht appreciates, a valuation loss occurs in regard to the country’s foreign reserves, whereas there is there is a valuation gain when the baht weakens, the assistant governor explained.

When the economy improves and the currency tends to strengthen, the central bank usually registers a valuation loss, but if the economy worsens and the baht depreciates, it normally records a valuation gain, she said.

At the end of last year, the BOT had about US$240 billion (Bt7.64 trillion) in foreign reserves.

If the Thai currency appreciated by Bt1 against the US dollar, the BOT would have an instant valuation loss of Bt240 billion on such a level of reserves.

On the other hand, if the baht depreciated by Bt1, the central bank would make an immediate valuation gain of Bt240 billion, Chantavarn said.

She was also at pains to explain that the foreign reserves were still in the form of foreign currency, which was something that did not deteriorate, unlike like agricultural products or commodities as the social-media reporting had compared them to.