supported by the ministries of Energy, Science and Technology, Industry, Transport, and Digital Economy and Society, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, Chulalongkorn University, the Council of Engineers, the Architect Council of Thailand, will also address the technological, regulatory, technical and financial challenges involved.

It takes place from March 21-23 in Halls 103-104 of the Bangkok International Trade & Exhibition Centre (Bitec) in Bang Na.

Organising committee chairman Assistant Professor Dr Tatchai Sumitra said on Monday this would be the first international energy event held in Thailand to present the “whole pipeline of energy”.

He called it “a major step forward in the cooperation of key agencies, including state-owned enterprises and the private sector”.

The conference will cover innovations and the latest technologies, means of energy storage, regional cooperation, “smart cities” and ways to combine the efforts of more than 200 companies.

Tatchai said organisers anticipate 10,000 attending from 50 countries.

Senior vice president Ewen McDonald said THAI would carry out maturity and cyclic testing on the engine, providing a fuller understanding of engine performance over a sustained period of operation.

Alongside sustained growth in engine production, Rolls-Royce is currently introducing three new, large civil aero engines.

The high-thrust version of the Trent XWB – the Trent XWB-97 – will enter service in the coming weeks on the Airbus A350-1000.

The Trent 7000 will power the A330neo later this year, and the Trent 1000 TEN entered service last November, powering the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

Dr Rattipong Putthacharoen, a system engineer at CLM Symantec, said this week the range includes trojans launched against online banking transactions to attacks on ATMs.

While 2015 saw an increase in attacks against corporations, 2016 witnessed a spike in attacks on financial institutions.

They included a series of high-value heists targeting customers of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (Swift).

While there is no evidence of such high-cost robberies on Swift clients so far this year, those in 2016 saw several institutions lose millions of dollars to cyber-criminals and state-supported hackers such as the so-called Lazarus group.

On average, 38 per cent of financial threats detected in 2016 were “found in large business locations”, Rattipong said.

“Most of these infection attempts were not targeted attacks, but were instead due to widespread email campaigns. Although we have seen a 36-per-cent decrease in detection numbers for financial malware in 2016, this is mainly due to earlier detection in the attack chain and more focused attacks.”

The total agreement for 36 aircraft is valued at US$16 billion (Bt505-bn) based on latest list prices. Deliveries are to start by 2020.

The agreement was signed at the World Government Summit by Emirates chairman and CEO Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, and Mikail Houari, Airbus President for Africa and Middle East.

Also present were Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, ruler of the Emirate of Dubai, and French prime minister Edouard Philippe.

Sheikh Ahmed said: “This agreement underscores our commitment to the A380 programme, providing stability to the A380 production line and supporting thousands of high-value jobs across the aviation supply chain. For Emirates, the A380 has been a successful aircraft for our customers, our operations and our brand. We look forward to continue working with Airbus to further enhance the aircraft and onboard product.”

Fabrice Brégier, Airbus president and chief operating officer, replied: “We thank Emirates, HH Sheikh Ahmed, [Emirates president] Tim Clark and Adel Al-Redha for their continued confidence in the A380, which has so successfully transformed air travel in the 21st century.

“This latest agreement further demonstrates the strength of our valued partnership with Emirates in support of their impressive growth.”

The National Legislative Assembly passed the EEC bill into law on Thursday night, designating the already rapidly industrialising eastern region as a special economic zone in order to attract foreign investment.

Activist Srisuwan Janya said he was considering lodging a petition with the Constitutional Court to challenge the new law’s validity.

“Let me look at its details first,” Srisuwan told The Nation yesterday.

The law could potentially violate the rights of local people in the three main provinces covered by the EEC – Chon Buri, Rayong and Chachoengsao – as well as nearby provinces, he said.

The law gave foreign investors too many tax privileges as well as the right to lease land for as long as 90 years, he explained.

“Why would we allow them to use our resources, land, water, air and other natural resources almost free of charge?” he asked.

Srisuwan will organise a meeting of local people early next month in Rayong province in order to educate them about the potential impact of the law and how it could jeopardise their rights. Local communities had so far responded well to his move as they were worried about the EEC impact on their livelihoods, he said.

he also raised the issue of air pollution in the Mapta Phut industrial complex in Rayong. Air quality could deteriorate when more investment pours into the region under the EEC initiative, he said.

Saowaruj Rattanakhamfu, senior researcher at the Thailand Development Research Institute, who closely follows EEC, shared similar concerns about pollution.

There is no clear direction in the law for how pollution would be addressed, she said, just a vague clause about health and environmental impact assessments in the law.

“As Bangkok is now facing rising air pollution at a dangerous level, it could happen in the EEC region,” she noted.

“The main issue with health and environmental impact assessments conducted by authorities is that they have often favoured big businesses at the expense of local community,” said Saowaruj.

So far, it was not clear if the welfare of local people would be guaranteed, or whether they would be employed in well-paid jobs, she said.

The government may need to look at the experience of Nevada in the United States, where state authorities required Tesla, the electric car and battery manufacturers, to hire those live in Nevada State, she said.

Under the law, the government will create a fund designed to provide funding and training to meet the demand for skilled labour in the EEC. However, Saowaruj said it was not clear how it would be executed for the benefit of the local people.

The EEC project could attract additional foreign direct investment if the government implemented a high-speed rail project linking the three main international airports – Suvarnabhumi, Don Muang in Bangkok and U-tapao in Chon Buri.

Potential industries in the EEC include aviation, logistics, robotics and automation, and digital businesses may also attract investment, she said.

TDRI will next month hold an academic seminar, along with a research house from Japan, exploring the potential return from rail investment in the EEC.

In the past 12 months, mobile phone usage in Vietnam has grown on an average of 19 per cent, accounting for 72 per cent of the overall e-commerce Web traffic. In comparison to other Southeast Asian countries, Vietnam enjoyed the steepest growth at 26 per cent.

However, in absolute terms, Indonesia is leading mobile e-commerce, with 87 per cent of the traffic coming from mobile phones. Meanwhile, traffic via personal computers is less than 30 per cent in all countries in the region.

Vietnam is also the leader in website conversion rate, which measures the percentage of website visitors that turn into customers, with a conversion rate of up to 65 per cent, closely followed by Singapore and Indonesia.

Meanwhile, with the low use of credit cards (except in Singapore), e-commerce merchants are offering more payment options to reach out to shoppers.

In Vietnam, 86 per cent of merchants offer online payment, while cash on delivery is offered by more than 80 per cent of the players. Besides this, in both Viet Nam and Thailand, almost 50 per cent of the merchants offer offline point of sales.

This is due to the popularity of online to offline e-commerce models, such as The gioi gi dong (Vietnam Mobile World), FPT Shop and Nguyen Kim, the report said.

However, due to lower gross domestic product per capital (US$6,880) compared to other countries in the region, Vietnam has the lowest basket size, with an average order value of just $23.

iPrice’s data was collected from over 1,000 e-commerce players operating in the six largest Southeast Asian markets, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam.

“The allegation may be a personal issue, but it could affect the scoring of corporate governance for the listed company,” he said.

Bandid was referring to Italian-Thai president Premchai Karnasuta, who was arrested over allegations of poaching a critically endangered black leopard and other animals in the Thung Yai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary.

According to a 2017 IOD survey, Italian-Thai scored very high in corporate governance with a four-star rating. The IOD is a non-profit organisation designed to improve directors’ professionalism and corporate governance in Thailand.