#ศาสตร์เกษตรดินปุ๋ย : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

BoI urged to find new ways to lure investment in post-Covid era

Econ

Jun 16. 2020Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak

By The Nation

With worldwide foreign direct investment hit badly by the Covid-19 crisis, the government is looking to come up with new investment incentives to lure businesses into relocating their manufacturing base to Thailand. 

Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak said he has instructed the Board of Investment (BoI) to redesign incentive packages to specially cover companies that are looking to relocate their factories. 

He was speaking after he met senior BoI officials on Monday (June 15). 

The global economy is expected to slump for the next year or two in the fallout of the pandemic, which has also had a serious impact on FDI worldwide.

However, he said, investors from China, Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan are showing interest in Thailand. 

The areas of their interest are food, processing of farm products, logistics and manufacturing of metal equipment, he said, adding that Thailand’s relative success in controlling the spread of the virus has contributed to the rise in investor confidence. 

“The global economy will not recover in the next year or two and it will have an impact on FDI, so BoI’s challenge is to turn Thailand into a real hub for CLMV,” he said, referring to Thailand’s neighbouring countries, namely Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. 

He said BoI should look beyond tax incentives and consider options such as making use of Thailand’s Bt10-billion competitiveness fund, he said. 

In a move to promote small-scale investment, BoI recently gave the go-ahead for projects worth no more than Bt100 million to get approval without having to wait for a final okay from the BoI board chaired by Prime Minister Chan-o-cha, he said. 

So far, BoI has been concentrating on promoting manufacturing for export, and now it is time to support more local businesses in both manufacturing and service sectors, the minister said. 

BoI also needs to help local start-ups become “unicorns” with an annual revenue US$1 billion within five years, he said. 

Duangjai Asawachintachit, BoI secretary-general, said the office has yet to set a target for FDI this year due to the impact of the pandemic. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has estimated that the fallout of the virus will bring worldwide FDI down by 30 to 40 per cent this year. 

“Whether Thailand can do better than the global average will depend on new incentives to promote factory relocation, which will draw in FDI in the second half of the year,” she added. 

Last year, BoI launched a package to lure large projects worth Bt1 billion each, but to promote manufacturing relocation, the agency will have to target smaller projects, she added. 

The BoI board will meet on June 17 to discuss incentives on promoting the agricultural sector, especially indoor farming where lights, humidity and fertilisers are controlled to produce high-quality vegetables fast and efficiently, Duangjai said.

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Oil dips lower on fears second virus wave could derail economy

Econ

Jun 15. 2020The Kobe Chouest platform supply vessel sits anchored next to the Chevron Corp. Jack/St. Malo deepwater oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana on May 18, 2018. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Luke Sharrett.

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Hailey Waller, Grant Smith · BUSINESS, US-GLOBAL-MARKETS 
Oil extended losses on signs that a second wave of the coronavirus could derail a nascent economic recovery.

Futures fell below $35 a barrel in New York, sinking in tandem with equity markets, after falling 8.3% last week. Beijing closed the city’s largest fruit and vegetable supply center following a surge of virus cases, stirring fears of a resurgence just as the world’s largest oil user was showing signs of improving demand.

“Fear has started sprouting again,” said Bjornar Tonhaugen, head of oil markets at consultant Rystad Energy in Oslo. “Concerns that we may be seeing the beginning of a second wave of the pandemic are dominating trading floors.”

Crude’s six-week rally fizzled on Friday amid concerns the worst of the virus isn’t yet over and as the U.S. Federal Reserve warned the pandemic could inflict lasting damage on the American economy. BP’s announcement on Monday that it will write down the value of the business by the most in a decade reinforced the picture of an industry in turmoil.

West Texas Intermediate crude for July settlement fell 3% to $35.16 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 10:12 a.m. It has lost more than 11% since closing at a three-month high on June 10. Brent for August delivery declined 1.6% to $38.11 a barrel on the ICE Futures Europe exchange after dropping 8.4% last week.

Still, there are signs that the physical oil market is tightening.

OPEC and its allies have agreed to maintain production cutbacks amounting to about 10% of global supply into next month, and will hold committee meetings on Wednesday and Thursday to assess their impact.

Saudi Arabia will deliver between 10% and 40% less crude than requested to seven refiners in Asia in July, according to refinery officials who asked not to be identified. Iraq, which has typically lagged in implementing its agreed cuts, instructed BP to reduce output by 10% at the country’s biggest oilfield.

Activity at America’s vast deposits, including shale, continues to slow, with drilling rigs falling to a 13th week to the lowest in more than a decade, data from Baker Hughes showed on Friday.

“The U.S. shale patch will be very important for global balances and will influence what Saudi and Russia do on the month-to-month extension of their deal,” said Tamar Essner, director of energy and utilities at Nasdaq.

On the demand side, Chinese official figures showed refinery runs in Asia’s largest economy rose last month on a year-on-year basis. Refineries processed 13.69 million barrels a day in May, according to Bloomberg calculations based on figures from the nation’s statistics bureau. That was 7.5% higher than in April and 8.2% more than a year earlier.

#ศาสตร์เกษตรดินปุ๋ย : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

EU challenges China’s trade expansion with landmark tariff

Econ

Jun 15. 2020

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Jonathan Stearns · BUSINESS, WORLD 

The European Union fired a warning shot at China over its global trade ambitions with an unprecedented tariff decision to counter Chinese subsidies to exporters.

For the first time, the EU on Monday took aim at alleged market-distorting aid granted by a country to exporters located in another state. To date, such European duties have focused only on subsidies provided by the country where the exporters are based.

“It’s a landmark case that could lead to many more similar ones,” said Agatha Kratz, an associate director at Rhodium Group who leads research on EU-China relations and Chinese commercial diplomacy. “Chinese state support is in fact found widely beyond China’s borders, with distortive effects on EU and other foreign stakeholders.”

The dispute involves EU imports from Egypt of glass fiber fabrics, an industrial good used in everything from wind turbines to sports equipment. The two Egyptian exporters of such fabrics are subsidiaries of China Jushi Co. and Zhejiang Hengshi Fiberglass Fabrics Co.

Jushi Egypt for Fiberglass Industry SAE and Hengshi Egypt Fiberglass Fabrics SAE are based in the China-Egypt Suez Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone, which is part of China’s controversial “Belt and Road” global infrastructure-development plan.

The EU said that Jushi Egypt and Hengshi Egypt received financial benefits from the Chinese and Egyptian governments and that the aid, along with subsidies for glass fiber fabrics shipped directly from China, unfairly undercut the bloc’s own producers such as Finland-based Ahlstrom-Munksjo Oyj in the European market.

EU manufacturers that also include European Owens Corning Fiberglas SPRL in Belgium and France-based Chomarat Textiles Industries SAS suffered “material injury,” the European Commission, the 27-nation bloc’s executive arm in Brussels, said in the Official Journal.

Europe is stepping up efforts to guard against expansionist Chinese commercial policies, part of a balancing act that echoes U.S. concerns about China’s economic rise while staying within the framework of the World Trade Organization. By contrast, Washington has taken unilateral action against Beijing in ways that sidestep the WTO and that have prompted European criticism.

In its decision to impose an anti-subsidy duty on Egyptian glass fiber fabrics, the commission devoted a sizable section to constructing an argument that WTO law gives the EU scope to take account of Chinese aid to Jushi Egypt and Hengshi Egypt when calculating the level of the levy on both companies. The rate is 10.9%.

The commission presented this legal analysis in the context of the political significance of China’s Belt and Road Initiative in general and of the Suez Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone, or SETC-Zone, in particular.

“The governments of Egypt and China have pooled their resources to provide the companies manufacturing in the SETC-Zone with favorable conditions that confer benefits to them,” the commission said. “This pooling of resources via such close cooperation serves a common purpose and benefits a common beneficiary (Jushi Egypt and Hengshi Egypt).”

Jushi Egypt and Hengshi Egypt are related through a bigger Chinese parent company — China National Building Material Group. The EU anti-subsidy duty on glass fiber fabrics from Egypt is for five years.

As part of the same decision on Monday, the EU imposed a separate set of anti-subsidy levies ranging from 17% to 30.7% on glass fiber fabrics originating in China. The five-year rates on the imports from China depend on the Chinese company.

Because of these new anti-subsidy duties, the EU separately lowered the levels of five-year tariffs imposed in April to counter alleged below-cost — or “dumped” — imports of glass fiber fabrics from China. The rates of these anti-dumping levies have been 37.6% or 99.7%, depending on the exporter. The new levels range from 34% to 69%.

A separate EU anti-dumping duty on glass fiber fabrics from Egypt — also imposed in April — is unchanged at 20%.

#ศาสตร์เกษตรดินปุ๋ย : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

Stock market opens sharply lower Monday after worst week since March, with Dow down 600 points

Econ

Jun 15. 2020

By The Washington Post · Hannah Denham · BUSINESS, PERSONAL-FINANCE, US-GLOBAL-MARKETS 

The stock market slid sharply with Monday’s opening bell, with new coronavirus outbreaks sparking more concern among investors about economic recovery.

The Dow Jones industrial average was down around 600 points, or 2.3%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq was down 108 points, and the Standard & Poor’s 500 index was down 57 points.

The downturn continued last week’s slide, which was the sharpest plummet since mid-March, prompted by the health and economic crises, despite a hopeful Friday rebound.

As of Monday, at least 114,000 people had died in the United States from covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, in every state since February. 

At least 2,087,000 cases have been reported. Public health officials fear new surges after large Memorial Day crowds and protests in cities across the U.S. and states launch reopenings.

#ศาสตร์เกษตรดินปุ๋ย : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

SET slides over fears of second wave of Covid-19 infections

Econ

Jun 15. 2020

By The Nation

The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) Index dropped 40.57 points or 2.93 per cent to close at 1,341.99 today (June 15). Total transaction volume was Bt83.379 billion with an index high of 1,379.78 and a low of 1,338.25.

During the morning session, a stock analyst at Krungsri Securities said he expected the index to between 1,370 and 1,375 points due to uncertainty following a second wave of Covid-19 infections in China and Japan, where there have been 49 and 47 new cases respectively.

“The number of new Covid-19 cases in some US states such as Arizona, South Carolina and Texas have risen due to the easing of some lockdown measures,” he said.

“The index is also under pressure from the drop in crude oil prices as uncertainty over the second wave of Covid-19 infections will lead to lower demands for oil.”

However, he said, he expects the index to rebound in response to the lifting of curfew and final easing of restrictions.

“Investors also expect SET to announce stocks to be added to the SET50 and SET100 this week,” he added.

The top 10 stocks with the highest trade value today were BAM, KBANK, SUPER, MINT, PTT, INUTCH, ADVANC, BBL, SCB, and AOT.

As of 4.30pm, the price of crude oil dropped by US$0.78 or 2.15 per cent to $35.48 per barrel, while gold dropped by $14.70 or 0.85 per cent, to $1,722.60 per ounce.

The global indices were on the slide:

Japan’s Nikkei Index closed at 21,530.95, down 774.53 points, or 3.47 per cent.

China’s Shanghai SE Composite Index closed at 2,890.03, down 29.71 points, or 1.02 per cent, while Shenzhen SE Component Index closed at 11,192.27, down 59.43 points, or 0.53 per cent.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index closed at 23,776.95, down 524.43 points, or 2.16 per cent.

South Korea’s KOSPI Index closed at 2,030.82, down 101.48 points, or 4.76 per cent.

Taiwan’s TAIEX Index closed at 11,306.26, down 123.68 points, or 1.08 per cent.

#ศาสตร์เกษตรดินปุ๋ย : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

Revenue teams up with 160 nations to identify firms that should be taxed under E-Services law

Econ

Jun 15. 2020

By The Nation

The Revenue Department has signed an agreement with 160 countries to close loopholes in the upcoming E-Services tax law.

Director-General Ekniti Nitithanprapas said his department signed a mutual assistance pact on tax administration with 160 countries including Japan, France, Germany and Australia so that the revenue departments of each country can share information of registered companies to assess whether tax has to be collected if these firms provide a platform in Thailand.

“This move will overcome the vulnerability in E-Services tax or value added tax collections from foreign digital platforms that do not have a subsidiary company in Thailand and have service income of Bt1.8 million and above so they pay 7 per cent income tax,” Ekniti said.

The act has been submitted to the House of Representatives for approval.

In addition, the Revenue Department is preparing to issue an announcement on reduction of e-tax withholding rates, from the original 3 per cent to 2 per cent, between October 31 and December 31.

With Commercial banks handling payments, firms or individuals will no longer have to keep withholding certificates in paper form as the bank will send this information directly to the Revenue Department and the information will be recorded electronically. This will speed up the process of calculating taxes and tax returns.

#ศาสตร์เกษตรดินปุ๋ย : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

Gold price flat

Econ

Jun 15. 2020

By The Nation

The price of gold remained flat in morning trade today (June 15), the Gold Traders Association reported.

As of 9.24am, the buying price of a gold bar was Bt25,300 per baht weight and selling price Bt25,400, while gold ornaments were priced at Bt24,847.24 and Bt25,900, respectively.

The Gold Spot Index price this morning moved to around US$1,733 (Bt53,636) per ounce after the price dropped by $2.5 to $1,737.3 at close on Friday.

Investors sold safe haven assets after the US Dow Jones Index rose more than 400 points. Meanwhile, gold came under pressure from a strengthening dollar and rising US bond yields.

The Hong Kong gold price dropped by HK$20 to $16,010 (Bt63,948) per tael this morning.

#ศาสตร์เกษตรดินปุ๋ย : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

SET slides on worries over Covid-19 second wave

Econ

Jun 15. 2020

By The Nation

The Stock Exchange of Thailand Index fell by 9.05 points, or 0.65 per cent, to 1,373.51 this morning (June 15).

A stock analyst at Krungsri Securities expected the index to fall between 1,370 and 1,375 points due to uncertainty following a second wave of Covid-19 in China and Japan, with 49 and 47 new cases, respectively.

“Also, the number of new Covid-19 cases in the US has increased in some states after lockdowns were eased, such as Arizona, South Carolina and Texas,” the analyst said.

“In addition, the index will be under pressure from a decline in the crude oil price because of the uncertainty due the second wave of Covid-19 and would expectedly lead to lower oil demand.”

He, however, said the index would rebound in response to the government’s suspension of night curfew and the fourth phase of lockdown easing.

“Investors expect the SET to announce stocks added to the SET50 and SET100 this week,” he added.

He recommended investors buy:

▪ Stocks that would be added to the SET50 and SET100, such as BPP, TTW, Ace, DoHome, RBF, SIRI, SISB, TVO and WHAUP.

▪ Stocks whose second-quarter performance will improve, such as CKP, Tasco, STA and RS.

▪ Mint, Centel, ERW and AOT.

The SET Index on Friday fell by 14 points, or 1.02 per cent, closing at 1,382. Total transactions were worth Bt8.6 billion.

Foreign investors made a net sell of Bt2 billion in stocks and Bt290 million in bonds. There were 3,243 net short TFEX SET50 contracts.

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SRT to seek Cabinet approval for 2nd phase of double track railway in September

Econ

Jun 15. 2020

By THE NATION

The State Railway of Thailand (SRT) is reportedly expected to submit its investment plan for the second phase of double rail-track development for the Cabinet’s consideration in September.

The agency is working on additional details of the project before it’s presented to the National Economic and Social Development Council (NESDC) later this month.

The council had earlier queried the project on several issues, including its commercial viability and how it will benefit SRT, even though the state-agency has insisted the double-track railway will benefit the country’s transport system.

The second phase covers seven routes, namely the 285-kilometre Paknampo-Denchai route, estimated to cost Bt59.3 billion; the 308km Jira-Ubon Ratchathani route costing Bt36 billion; the 167km Khon Kaen-Nong Khai line costing Bt25.8 billion; the 168km Chumphon-Surat Thani line costing Bt23 billion; 321km Surat Thani-Hat Yai-Songkhla line costing Bt56.1 billion; 189km Denchai-Chiang Mai line costing Bt57.9 billion; and the 45km Hat Yai-Padang Besar route costing Bt7.86 billion.

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Household debt could soar beyond 80% of GDP due to Covid-19 crisis: NESDC

Econ

Jun 15. 2020NESDC secretary-general Thosaporn Sirisumphand

By The Nation

The Covid-19 crisis has had a massive impact on household debt and it is expected to rise to more than 80 per cent of GDP, the National Economic and Social Development Council (NESDC), a state think-tank, has warned.

Thai household debt stood at 79.8 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in the first quarter of this year.

The pandemic resulted in businesses shutting down in addition to the drought already having hit households hard, leading to increased borrowing of money as incomes declined, NESDC secretary-general Thosaporn Sirisumphand said.

The economic impact will be severe in the second quarter, he predicted, as many businesses have laid off workers, or cut their employees’ salaries.

“The income shock led to continued expansion of consumers loans, growing 7.1 per cent, while the NESDC had predicted it should be lesser,” he said. Consumer loans expanded 7.5 per cent in the fourth quarter of last year.

While overall GDP value decreased to Bt15 trillion this year from Bt16 trillion last year, combined with the income shock household debt is expected to surpass 80 per cent of GDP this year, he warned.

Consumers also used personal loans for doing businesses, estimated to be 17.9 per cent of total personal loans, which include hire purchase, auto loans and mortgage, he said. Taking this behaviour into account, household debts could be lower, he estimated.

Non-performing loans arising from consumption loans is about 3.23 per cent of total consumption loans, up from 2.9 per cent in the fourth quarter of last year. Bad debts amounted to Bt156 billion, he added.

Thai household debt totalled Bt13.47 trillion in the fourth quarter of last year, up 5 per cent but down from 5.5 per cent in the pervious quarter. The debt-to-GDP ratio was 79.8 per cent, the highest in 14 quarters. It is expected to surpass 80 per cent of GDP this year.