NBTC secretary general Takorn Tantasith made the remark yesterday at the opening of the two-day seminar, International Symposium on Converging Technologies & Disruptive Communications-Moving Forward,which was hosted by the NBTC in Thailand.

Takorn added that the Digital Advertising Association (Thailand) estimated that total spending on digital media advertising will reach more than Bt14 billion by the end of this year, growing about 21per cent from last year, and Facebook will remain the most popular platform followed by YouTube.

On the other hand, the overall ads spending on terrestrial TV channels has declined by about 10 per cent per year on average from more than Bt2.5 billion in 2015 to about Bt2 billion at the present.

The OTT operators are those delivering media content to viewers, such as films and TV programmes, via the Internet.

In the next two to three years, the global money supply will be the most important factor in influencing the change in global stock prices, Pornchai said at an annual press interview.

“From 2008 to today, there has been a significant increase in global money supply, which is one of the key factors pushing up global stock prices and asset prices”, he explained. “Hence, if there is a reduction in the global money supply, it will have a big impact on stock prices.”

Credit Suisse is one of Thailand’s top foreign institutional brokers, a leading investment bank in Thailand as well as a wealth management firm. It established itself in Thailand in 2000 and led Thailand’s first-ever concurrent convertible bond offering and equity placement in 2017. In the past 10 years, Credit Suisse has completed 27 equity and equity-linked transactions, raising US$9.1 billion for Thailand-listed companies.

“The biggest swing factor in global money supply in the past five to six years has been the role of the government in different countries. Governments are trying to normalise their monetary policy, which has been ‘super easy’ since the 2008 global financial crisis. I believe this will be the most important factor influencing stock prices in the coming years,” said Pornchai.

Normalisation in monetary policy will involve an increase in interest rates, which will decrease money supply in the economy, which in turn will lead to a fall in stock prices.

Speaking about the global trade war, Pornchai warned investors to be more on the cautious side in the next 12 months. There is a high level of difficulty in forecasting what the trade policies of the US and China will be, hence it constitutes a risk factor investors should be aware of.

“Despite this worry, we think the trade war is more of a negotiation game,” he said. “All parties involved in this trade negotiation want what is best in the economic interest of their respective countries. Hence, both sides will eventually settle for negotiations and avoid an all-out trade war.”

Pornchai said that despite these geopolitical risks, there were promising prospects for economic growth and stock market stability for the rest of this year. However, he said there would be a higher risk for investors with regard to the stock market next year, as trade wars often have a lagged effect on the economy.

Meanwhile, the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) has been performing relatively well with increased investments in new types of bonds as well as investments abroad, Pornchai said. Various investors in Thailand are becoming more interested in investing abroad. Since 1997, Thailand’s government has been implementing capital control measures and gradually loosening the extent of control over capital flowing out of the country, according to Pornchai. As Thai investors have mostly been investing in Thailand, a large portion of their total investment capital is in Thailand. Therefore, Thai investors are now looking to invest in foreign markets to diversify their risks and to capitalise on profit opportunities in foreign emerging markets, he says.

This growing interest to invest abroad has led to the purchasing of new investment instruments such as perpetual and convertible bonds in Thailand’s stock market, said Pornchai.

He added that both countries have also agreed to promote and support small and medium enterprises, and give them an opportunity to collaborate and develop their businesses.

The bank is also offering loans at a special interest rate of 4 per cent to help SMEs recover from floods. This deal is available until February 28 next year, the bank said.

An escalation of the current US-China trade dispute that adds a 25-per-cent tariff on all non-fuel goods could shave roughly one percentage point off the US GDP by 2021. For China, the loss to GDP would be around six-tenths of 1 per cent, an article titled “Global Trade at a Crossroads: It’s Hard to See Any Winners in a US-China Trade War”.

“Attempts to help those hurt by globalisation via higher tariffs or other forms of protectionism, even if well meaning, will raise prices and hurt all consumers, especially poor and middle-class families,” US senior economist Satyam Panday said. “Not to mention damage the competitiveness of companies that import raw materials and components from other countries and folks who work in export industries.”

Industry Minister Uttama Savanayana held discussions with Geoff Donald, executive director of the Europe-Asean Business Alliance (EABA) and representatives from 15 leading European firms who called on Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak yesterday.

Uttama said: “Thailand has the proper location to become a financial hub and Somkid has told us about the policy to promote Thailand as a regional financial hub, especially linked to CLMV.”

The EEC also has a plan to set up a financial centre for convenient financial transactions.

“We insist on supporting the policy” to promote Thailand as a financial hub, particularly linking Thailand to the CLMV, Uttama said in response to a question from Netherlands’ leading financial institution ABN Amro.

The representatives of the 15 European firms who met Somkid yesterday came from the finance, medical services, bio-industry and cybertechnology industries. EU direct investment in Thailand is the third highest behind Japan and China.

Moscow-based security software-maker Kaspersky Lab is interested in setting up a research centre, while Swiss healthcare company Hoffmann-La Roache AG is interested in establishing a research centre on biotechnology and biology. Both have been encouraged to invest in the Eastern Economic Corridor of innovation (EECi).

The Thai government has prepared an action plan on business and financial hubs (2017-21), aiming to develop a special economic zone in the East as a pilot area for Thailand 4.0 and focusing on innovation and technology development.

Among the key targets are to make the EEC a centre for investment for targeted industries, business and financial transactions, aiming to lure investors and firms to set up their operations ranging from international headquarters, international trading companies, treasury centres to financial institutes. The area has been earmarked as business and financial hubs in the future.

Both offshore and onshore transactions are targeted for transactions in this area, while some measures and legal issues will be adjusted. An example is allowing foreign financial institutions to set up more branches in the area and drafting the land and building law for ease of doing business.