Speaking at the closing press conference of the week-long 51st Asean Economic Ministers and related meetings on Tuesday, Deputy Prime Minister and Commerce Minister Jurin Laksanawisit said that Asean and the six partner countries in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) have agreed to conclude RCEP negotiations by the end of this year and have given a mandate to officials to work on concluding the technical details when they meet in Danang, Vietnam from September 19 to 27.

The Economic Ministers will then will wrap up the RCEP talks in November at a meeting in Bangkok and propose to RCEP leaders that they announce the successful conclusion of the talks.

“Every country including Japan and India have agreed to finalise the talks on schedule, which reflects their concerns about the trade conflicts and the global economy,” Jurin said..

Suvarn Thansathit, director and senior executive vice president of the bank, said Bangkok Bank has implemented measures to provide additional credit support for borrowers of business and personal loans by appointing staff to visit and provide advice to customers so they can get through this hard time and continue their businesses.

For people who have taken business loans, the bank is easing debt-repayment conditions, lowering interest rates, restructuring debt and waiving interest charges for defaulters. The bank is also providing additional loans for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) under the “Bualuang SME eases the burden for customers affected by floods in 2019” project by giving them short-term liquidity of up to Bt20 million at a minimum lending rate of minus 1 per cent per annum. The bank will consider cases on an individual basis.

The bank is also offering emergency loans to corporate customers.

“The bank is ready to provide ongoing assistance after the floods by considering each customer’s circumstances and hardship in order to offer the best solution. Customers can contact our business centres and branches to get more information on the measures or apply for assistance,” Suvarn said.

Tourism and Sports Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakan sent the proposal to the Cabinet for deliberation on Tuesday, saying it would promote tourism.

But Prayut said he rejected the proposal out of concern that critics were finding fault with his government.

“There are those finding fault with the government all the time these days,” Prayut sasid.

Besides, Prayut said, the government has already approved a measure to boost tourism by subsiding Bt1,000 of the travel costs for each citizen touring in the country. To be eligible for the subsidy, Thais must register for an e-wallet with the government and the Bt1,000 in the e-wallet must be used in certain shops taking part in the government programme.

Prayut said he was fed up with critics who also attacked the e-wallet measure for boosting tourism.

He added that he was happy to see that the tourism situation during the first eight months of this year was better than last year. He said the next four months will be a high season for foreign tourists and the government expects some 40 million foreign tourists will visit the kingdom.

The prime minister said tourism has already generated Bt2 trillion revenue from January to August, an increase of 3.27 per cent compared to last year. A total of 26.5 million foreign tourists visited the kingdom during the period, an increase of 2.61 per cent. Spending by foreign tourists generated revenue of Bt1.29 trillion, a growth of 3.04 per cent. Chinese, Malaysians, Indonesians, South Koreans and Laotians were the top five groups of foreign tourists during the period.

Thanawan Polvichai, the centre’s director, said entrepreneurs are facing cashflow problems as people’s purchasing power has dropped. The economy is also being affected by the ongoing US-China trade war, a fluctuating baht as well as low prices for agricultural products.

However, he said, the private sector believes the lowest point has passed after the economy grew by 2.3 per cent in the second quarter, the lowest growth figure in five years.

He added that stimulus packages and agriculture price guarantees should help revive the economy.

“The agriculture price guarantee project should determine whether the economy will recover,” he said. “The money that rubber, rice and palm farmers get will help them plan their finances. In the past four or five years, there were no schemes like this, which is what caused uncertainty in the income of farmers.”

The centre has forecast that the Thai economy will expand by 2.6 per cent in 2019, but additional economic stimulus and guarantee schemes may push the figure to 3 to 3.2 per cent.

Saowanee Thairoongroj, UTCC’s dean, said the private sector wants the government to initiate stimulus packages as swiftly as well as strengthen measures for natural disasters, boost the quality of Thai products for export, provide low-interest loans to businesses to help them maintain their cashflow and develop technology.

The delayed high-speed rail project is getting closer to being inked by the State Railway of Thailand (SRT) and CP Holding’s joint venture once an agreement on some key details of this public-private partnership project (PPP) have been reached.

Warawut Mala, SRT’s acting governor, said the panel responsible for the 220-kilometre high-speed rail connecting three international airports will meet representatives of the CP Holding joint venture on Wednesday (September 11).

The two sides will discuss SRT’s handing over of land to the CP joint venture for the project’s construction. He said that after the Cabinet approved the concession in May, the two sides discussed details of the PPP project to ensure the government does not lose huge sums like it did with unfinished ventures like the Hopewell project. The two sides have agreed in principle that construction will begin as soon as SRT issues a notice to proceed.

“The two sides will sign a contract before the bid winner can proceed with the construction,” he added.

The notice will be issued when the SRT is ready to hand land over to the private partner in the PPP and CP Holdings agrees to proceed with the construction, he said, adding that the timeframe for completion is five years.

Warawut said the two sides can on Wednesday also set a date for contract signing if they have no new issues to discuss. The SRT will  hand over 4,421 rai for the rail project within two years on the condition that one it can complete the expropriation of 850 rai.

The cost of the high-speed rail project connecting Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi and Don Mueang international airports with U-Tapao in Rayong is Bt224.5 billion. The CP venture is seeking Bt117.2 billion in state support.

Among the key measures included in “Thailand Plus Package”, a new package drawn up to attract foreign investment, is the easing of procedure for foreign investors in applying for visa and work permit.

Citing a Cabinet decision on September 10 approving the new measures, Phalang Pracharat spokesman Kobsak Pootrakool said under the new package, foreign investors could deduct cost for career training in the field of advanced-technology field by 250 per cent from 200 per cent, effective immediately until the end of next year.

Kobsak, in his capacity as secretary of the Council of Economic Ministers, said new hiring of Thai employees with special skills by foreign employers in the four fields under STEM educational doctrine – science, technology, engineering and mathematics – could enjoy 150 per cent corporate tax deduction from now until the end of 2020.

He said foreign companies in the field of high technology, such as Microsoft, Huawei, IBM and Google, would soon be expanding their business and starting new operations in Thailand.

Foreigners wanting to found or operate high-quality educational institutes or schools in the country are entitled to financial assistance under a government directive.

The directive, launched two years ago under the supervision of the Education Ministry, will soon come under the charge of a new division, being set up to regulate the operations of educational institutes by foreign investors. Ministers also approved 50 per cent cut of corporate tax for investors who invest Bt1 billion or more  within  2021 and apply for tax privileges within next year. The big tax cut will be offered for five years period and it is on top of current tax exemption for eight years.

The package was proposed by the Finance Ministry and the Board of Investment of Thailand. Thailand currently ranks fourth place in Asean for foreign direct investment, according to BoI.

Kobsak said the Cabinet expected the new measures to draw more than 5,000 new foreign companies applying for investment in Thailand with 40,000 Thai employees benefiting from the new conditions.

Explaining “Ease of Doing Business”, Kobsak said the package aimed to ease the complicated and time-consuming paperwork of an immigration protocol known as Tor Mor 30, which has drawn negative comments from both expatriates and foreign investors.

Virabongsa Ramankura, a former finance minister and noted economist, is urging the government to spend more as the economy slows down due to a trade war between the world’s two largest economies – the US and China.

Virabongsa, who was also formerly a deputy prime minister, said the government should not worry about the country being hit by a debt crisis like in 1997, adding that the public debt is only 42 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP), which is quite low.

He said the government could borrow more money or push the debt up to 70 per cent of the GDP. The economist also said it was a pity that the government has not been using its financial resources effectively to boost growth.

The government could also unlock high liquidity in the financial system to benefit investments, he said, adding that regulations restraining the disbursement of funds to promote public investments should also be relaxed.

He also put the slowdown to public infrastructure projects that are stalled, adding that the government has not been taking advantage of the fact that the country has a high current-account surplus.

“This is a weak point of the military government, which deploys state officials for work. This is in contradiction to an elected government, which is usually under high pressure to deliver outcomes,” he said.

However, he said, he agreed with the government’s project of giving cash to farmers.

He said Thailand could not avoid the impact from the trade war as exports account for 75 per cent of the GDP. Thai exports have contracted due to a slowdown in the global economy and the strengthening baht is also worsening matters for the export sector, he said.

The average daily trading value of SET and the Market for Alternative Investment (MAI) in August surged 30 per cent from a year earlier to Bt65.36 billion. Foreign investors were net sellers of Thai shares at Bt54.26 billion.

SET senior executive vice president Soraphol Tulayasathien said the index in August moved in tandem with other regional bourses, weighed down by worries over lingering trade tensions between the United States and China, and the protests in Hong Kong.

Moreover, a potential no-deal Brexit is threatening the global economic turnaround and profitability of listed companies, which export electronic components, industrial products and petroleum. It is advisable for investors to closely monitor these external factors, he said.

At the end of August, SET’s forward and historical P/E ratios were a respective 16.5 and 18.8 times compared to the average of its Asian peers of 14.3 and 15.6 times, respectively.

The SET’s dividend yield ratio was 3.11 per cent at end-August, surpassing the MSCI Emerging Market average ratio of 2.95 per cent.

The combined market capitalisation of SET and MAI at the end of August rose 7 per cent from end-2018 to Bt17.9 trillion, in line with the SET Index.

Funds mobilised through IPOs during the eight months through August were Bt22.84 billion.

Meanwhile, the average daily derivatives trading volume in August soared 33 per cent from the first half to 504,536 contracts, Soraphol said.

September 9) in Nanning, capital of China’s Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.

China has maintained its position as the largest trading partner of the Asean for ten consecutive years. In the first half of 2019, Asean became China’s second largest trading partner for the first time, with bilateral trade volume reaching US$291.85 billion, up 4.2 per cent year-on-year.

The robust trade benefits from the widely applied AI technologies. For example, the owner of a fresh melon chain store in Zhengzhou, central China’s Henan Province can directly learn the growth status of the dragon fruit, the brand and dosage of pesticides used in the orchard in Thailand, through Hikvision’s cameras installed in the orchard.

Apart from the agricultural field, AI technologies have also been applied in the disaster relief field.

While Laos was reeling from serious flooding in July 2018, an auxiliary dam of a hydropower station under construction in Attapeu Province collapsed, leaving numerous people homeless.

Thanks to the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) control mapping technology provided by a Chinese company and the AI data analysis, the relief team in Laos discovered many disaster-stricken areas that were not found before, and saved many trapped villagers after re-planning the route.

Chairat Porntipwarawet, consul-general of Royal Thai Consulate-General in Nanning, said  the platform for Asean and China to interconnect and cooperate in the AI field is extremely important as it will provide new development opportunities for enhancing the well-being of both sides.

At the summit, the China-Asean financial information service platform was launched, which many experts believe will provide an important channel for the “precise docking” of the finance and real economy within the China-Asean Free Trade Area.

According to a source in charge of the platform, it will provide professional information services such as financial information, data, analysis and consultation for Chinese companies that are going abroad and Asean companies that are coming to China through interconnection with Xinhua Silk Road, an economic information platform serving Belt and Road construction.

It will not only serve the business development between China and the Asean, but also help promote the people-to-people exchanges between the two sides.

Life insurance sector faces first market decline in a decade

Their research has found that the market has dropped for the first time in a decade, with the first half of 2019 showing a 6.1 per cent decline compared with the same period of last year.

The drop follows a policy to reduce sales of single premium policies, along with high competition from newcomers to the insurance industry.

“However, when the country’s economy recovers and life insurance firms also develop products to serve customer demand, the market will be boosted in the next year,” according to the research.