Duangporn Rodphaya, director-general of the department, said rice exports should continue to grow steadily as |many countries had shown strong interest in importing more rice before the |New Year.
“Countries that want to import rice under G2G contracts include Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia and China,” she said, adding that China would negotiate for a second 1-million-tonne lot of rice imports in the near future.
Malaysia is expected to import about 400,000 tonnes of rice from Thailand this year, more than last year when it bought about 300,000 tonnes.
According to the department, between January 1 and November 2, Thailand shipped a total of 8.4 million tonnes of rice.
Meanwhile, the Commerce Ministry will announce a new export standard for Hom Mali (jasmine) rice, dividing it into three grades, in order to ensure export growth in all markets.
Duangporn said the new standard would be announced on December 20.
“The new export standard will be drawn up to increase trading value and volume of Thai jasmine rice after Thailand lost some share of this market to other countries,” she said.
The new standard will better serve the differing needs of consumers in various export markets. Some markets may prefer a high-quality grade of jasmine rice regardless of the price, while others will go for lower grades because of their consumers’ lower purchasing power.
The new standard should also prevent the problem of rice traders mixing Hom Mali rice with other lower-quality rice grains, resulting in a bad reputation for Thai jasmine rice.
Under the planned revision, exports of jasmine rice must contain only 8 per cent husk rice to be certified as high-grade by the ministry. The other two lower-grade classifications will be 80 and 70 per cent jasmine rice.

“It is undeniable that the sales and circulation of newspapers are plummeting and there is also softness in advertising spending via traditional media because of the birth of new media and changes in the behaviour of media consumers in the last couple of years,” Thepchai Yong, president of the Confederation of Thai Journalists, said on Wednesday.
“This has had a massive impact on media businesses like we have never encountered before. Therefore, it is the right time to review and change our role,” said Thepchai, who also editor-in-chief of Nation Multimedia Group.
The seminar on how to survive in the digital age or “Media 4.0” was co-organised by the Foundation of Professor Bumrongsook Siha-Umphai on Communication Arts in collaboration with the faculty of communication arts of Chulalongkorn University and Nitade Chula Alumni. Since the arrival of online media, the role of mainstream media has diminished in importance both to individual audiences and society in general because online users are able to be serve as news reporters or content generators.
Kanokporn Prachayaset, the head of media solutions at Sanook Online, said that apart from mainstream media, online portal sites were also challenged by user-generated content, particularly content producers who were eager to get high traffic from viewers for commercial benefits without any responsibility to society.
“Being a good medium is always a tough job. So we need content verification in place,” Kanokporn stressed.
Media scholar Chumpol Rodkhamdee, who is chairman of the policy committee at Thai Public Broadcasting Service (Thai PBS), said social-media networks granted freedom of speech and expression to all users but, unlike professional traditional media, had no self-regulation.
Therefore, mainstream media should educate and enlighten consumers about how to verify content properly before sharing it with others. In the meantime, professional media should jointly promote the prevention of plagiarism, Chumpol urged.
“Mainstream media will cease to exist if it cannot maintain accountability, responsibility and trust,” he said. PM’s Office Minister ML Panadda Diskul suggested that Thai media should maintain their role as a key compass for society to bring back common happiness, understanding and unity.

While prices continue to rise, the rental yield has dropped with competing units for rent and resale. The time for a quick profit from the resale of newly launched units has, in many cases, passed.
The residential-sales market for investors will now be far more driven by the underlying demand from tenants, and a more rigorous understanding of rental returns, as well as the potential for future capital gains.
For high-net-worth individuals (HNWI) who have funds to invest in residential properties, there are more options, but they should consider which property would be the right one to buy.
They should consider those that not only generate good returns, but also consume less time when managing the investment portfolio.
Investors may be tempted to buy units in older buildings because of their lower price per square metre and higher rental yields, but with other choices in the market, my guidance for HNWI is to look at newer properties as a primary investment. Generally, older properties require additional expenditure on top of the purchase price.
There could be additional payments required to upgrade common areas, and the interior of these units may need significant expenditure on renovation. Additionally, older properties are currently more illiquid if investors want to resell.
It is my guidance that HNWI should buy units within the luxury to super-luxury categories in prime downtown areas. If one has long-term funds to invest for five to 10 years, this option has proved to be the right choice.
Even though prices have skyrocketed over the past 10 years, there is a very limited supply of prime freehold land left within the downtown area. As a result, the projection is that the value of well-designed and well-maintained downtown luxury and super-luxury projects will only increase over time, albeit at a slower and steadier rate than in the past five to 10 years.
Demand for these types of properties should remain steady from both affluent Thai buyers and international buyers. An example of this is The Sukhothai Residences, as it has generated consistent rental yields of 3-4 per cent, and an average of 6-per-cent capital appreciation per annum since its completion in 2011.
Though luxury products also come with higher common-area management fees, the yield from a luxury project in a prime location should cover the maintenance costs and still provide good and consistent returns.
Buying hotel- or serviced-apartment-branded residences that have rental management programmes or rental guarantees has become more and more popular among HNWI. They are hassle-free investment options with consistent rental yields.
Branded hotels or serviced apartments not only provide advantages of reliable property management, but tenancy management as well. Investors do not need to deal with maintaining and renting out the unit.
In the past, we were familiar with these products in resort locations such as Phuket.
Today, there is a growing interest in launching these types of products in Bangkok, such as The Park at Em District by Ascott.
Performance of Bangkok serviced apartments has been consistent, with average rentals of Bt1,000 per square metre. Branded serviced apartments command a premium rent over unbranded and non-serviced condominium projects in the same area.
London is still the most popular location for overseas property investments by Thai HNWI.
Despite Brexit and a higher stamp duty of 3 per cent, buyers’ appetites remain strong and investors remain active.
After UK citizens voted to leave the European Union, the favourable baht-pound exchange rate has presented an opportunity for Thai investors looking to purchase properties in prime locations in London. Thai investors are able to take advantage of discounts of up to 20 per cent due to the weaker pound as compared with pre-Brexit values.
Thai HNWI should focus on quality rather than quantity when it comes to residential-property investments. It would be better to buy a few good properties rather than a larger number of more average-quality properties.
Historically, quality properties have always outperformed the rest of the market, both in Bangkok and London.

This judgement came after two major TV broadcasters in South Korea sued the website for copyright violation.
Nusara Kanjanakul, director of the legal office of the Commerce Ministry’s Intellectual Property Department, said yesterday that the website had violated the Copyright Act BA 2558 on two counts, including modifying, copying and distributing content to the public without permission from copyright owners.
Moreover, if the website owner has earned revenue from advertising and used those for commercialise, it could also be subject to civil and criminal cases.
Under the Copyright Act, if Kodhit.com has benefited commercially from its actions, its owner could be subject to six months to four years in jail, and/or Bt100,000 to Bt800,000 in fines. But if there was no commercial benefit, it will face a fine of Bt20,000 to Bt200,000.
Recently, Kodhit.com decided to discontinue its popular Korean TV series with Thai subtitles after it was sued by Seoul Broadcasting System and Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation, both based in the South Korean capital.
Meanwhile, a provider of legal online video-on-demand (VOD) service said it welcomed this move as it would protect high-value intellectual property (IP).
Artima Suraphongchai, head of marketing at iflix Thailand, told The Nation yesterday that taking legal action against private websites that had infringed content copyrights was a common trend globally to protect investment in the creation of IP.
“The recent decision of the two media companies in South Korea was not surprising for our industry because they have the right to protect their own IP, which has been created by their own investment and creativity,” she said.
However, she acknowledged that one reason people were attracted to pirated content was that the current legal offerings did not meet their needs. The challenge is for legal services like iflix to work with studios to meet the needs of consumers better in terms of offerings and price.
As well, content owners should seek proper ways to work with legal players in online VOD business to offer valued service legally.
“The rights of content creators and owners must be respected,” she stressed.

They would be mainly individual travellers, families and company employees.
Growth in inbound numbers has slowed over past few months, particularly from the China market.
China is Thailand’s largest source of foreign visitors, with 7.9 million coming last year and 10 million projected to head here this year.
However, the Chiang Mai Tourism Business Association saw only 25,000 Chinese touring the northern province during Golden Week last month, down about 5,000-10,000 from the same holiday period in 2015.
Some tour operators fear that the country risks losing up to 800,000 Chinese tourists because of the crackdown. Zero-dollar tours offer what looks like cheap travel, but customers end up facing a lot of add-ons once they reach their destinations.
Thai AirAsia also predicts tourist arrivals from China falling 10-15 per cent because of the crackdown, but the budget airline is leaving its overall target at 17 million passengers for this year.
The airline is also set to focus on the Indochina market to substitute for the China market.
Kobkarn, however, insisted that total arrivals this year would remain growing and the China market was not affected.
To strengthen tourism in the final quarter of this year, TAT plans to organise many events such as “Jazz in the World Heritage” in Ayutthaya and to promote the nine royal routes initiated by the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej.
TAT expects that tourists and domestic travellers will generate Bt609 billion in revenue this quarter, better by 1.2 per cent than the final quarter last year.
Tourism revenue for the entire year now is expected to be Bt2.48 trillion, higher than the Bt2.40 trillion forecast earlier.