Their transaction value is expected to reach Bt120 million by the end of this year.

The ministry is in the process of upgrading 600 out of the existing 2,280 community ICT centres nationwide to become digital community centres.

ICT Minister Uttama Savana-yana said the digital centres would promote community products like rice, silk, crafts, food, and tourist areas via the online channel. They would also be a venue where community members can come to acquire knowledge.

“We have learnt that more and more people have their own smartphones and are starting to join online e commerce; they need wireless access to search for more information and sell their products online. So we’ll provide free Wi-Fi access to each of these digital centres,” Uttama said.

The ministry will provide to the digital centres high-speed free Wi-Fi, a computer set for graphic design, printer, a TV and media box to watch educational channels, as well as meeting desks. Free Wi-Fi would be offered for one year.

Initially, the ICT Ministry will send experts to the digital centres to teach the communities how to sell their products online via Facebook and Instagram, plus how to create packaging, and state regulations on e commerce.

Each centre will have one leader to administer and manage the centre so as to become a self-supporting centre in the next year.

He said digital community centres would also be a co-working space for communities to hold meetings for business planning and a learning centre for all people.

“We expect that more than 1 million people from the centres can reach and learn on the Internet within a year,” Uttama said.

Last week, the ICT minister visited the Digital Community Centre in Buri Ram and Roi-Et provinces in the Northeast.

In Roi-Et, the highlight is the Digital Community Centre in Wat Photikaram, led by the abbot of the temple – Phra Kru Photiveerakun.

The centre offers co-working space for members in the community with an open-air coffee shop for meetings on selling products, plus free Wi-Fi. Popular products of the community are honey, rice, and handicraft dolls. Revenue from the shop will support the centre’s further development.

However, the social bonds and relationships among Cambodian workers living in the Kingdom are quite fragile, and they rely on relatives who arrived in Thailand before them, and on their Thai employers.

For them, living and working in Thailand are not much different from what they did in Cambodia, as the two countries share many similarities, such as food, culture and living conditions.

Cambodian workers in Thailand, particularly in Chon Buri, tend to establish themselves over a diverse area. They are quite different in that regard from workers from Myanmar, who work and live as a community, such as in the Mahachai area of Samut Sakhon.

Amnat Sudsanguan, 48, owner of a fishing boat at Bang Saray in Chon Buri’s Sattahip district, said Thailand and Cambodia shared many things, such as human disposition, culture and tradition, such as making New Year merit and Songkran water blessings.

He said Pchum Ben was one of the most recognised Cambodian religious festivals, culminating in celebrations on the 15th day of the 10th month of the Khmer calendar. It is a time when many Cambodians pay their respects to deceased relatives. It is also the time when relatives get together.

Cambodians mark a longer period than Thais, 10 to 15 days, to celebrate the Songkran festival, and 80 per cent of Cambodian workers in Thailand head back to their homeland during that long holiday period.

Cambodians who work as crews on fishing boats based in Bang Saray came to this country for the main purpose of earning more money than they could back home. Almost half of money they earn is sent back to support their families in Cambodia.

Amnat said many vendors in Bang Saray provided a money-transfer service for Cambodian workers who want to send money back home.

“Most Cambodian workers living in Thailand were persuaded to come here by their relatives or neighbours,” said Amnat, who has been in the fishing industry for 16 years.

All fishing crews are men, while Cambodian women have less strenuous and less dangerous jobs, such as being waitresses at local restaurants or working in retail stores in the area.

He said the fishing crews worked 25 days a month and earned Bt1,000 a day when working on the boat. Employers and crews stay together like a family.

“We join together even at mealtimes.”

He said most Cambodian workers had mobile phones and 80 per cent of them used the Internet watch Cambodian movies and songs.

Kieng, 43, a Cambodian member of a fishing crew, has worked in Thailand for more than 12 years, following his relatives who had worked here before. He said he liked working in Thailand, where he is income is better than what he earned in Cambodia.

“When I first began working in Thailand, I did not know how to manage, as I did know anyone in Thailand. However, when I registered legally and got my non-Thai identification card, I was not afraid of living here any more,” he said.

Kieng said migrant workers from Cambodia tried to blend themselves in with the Thai people, who share similar cultures, personalities and ways of life, even in the way they dress and what they eat.

“In Cambodia, money is power. But in Thailand, the law and legal system are quite strict, more than in Cambodia,” he said.

Kieng said Cambodian women, especially teenagers, were doing better at adapting to living in Thailand than men, especially in dress and lifestyle. About 80 per cent of Cambodian women have been assimilated with Thais. If they do not speak, they are indistinguishable from Thais.

Tari Hai, 37, has been working in Thailand in construction for about three years, both in Saraburi and Chon Buri. In Cambodia, he stayed with family, which farmed rice in Battambang province in the country’s northwest.

“We did nothing and earned nothing when it was out of the planting season or during a drought. In Thailand, I get wages every day, enough for me to send money back home to support my father and mother,” he said.

“I return home to Cambodia once a year to see my family. In Thailand, however, I stay with my relatives in an accommodation provided by the Thai employer,” Tari Hai said.

Yuwadee Chirathivat, chief executive officer of Central Department Store Group, said that according to the Tourism Authority of Thailand, Thai tourists spent about Bt210 billion last year in travelling abroad, with 30 per cent of their expenditure accounted for by shopping.

Chinese tourists, who rank as the top spenders in the tourism sector around the world, especially when travelling in Europe, usually spend about half of their overall expenditure on shopping when travelling to destinations around the world.

When visiting Thailand, however, tourists from China spend only 15 per cent of their expenditure on shopping, she said.

“What Thailand [the government] and related authorities should do is to encourage Thai and international tourists to travel and shop more in Thailand. When people travel, they tend to spend more,” the CEO said.

“Thailand already provides good service and hospitality. What we should do is develop Thai products to ensure better quality and branding. The prices of shopping products, especially international luxury brands, should be lowered via the reduction of import tariffs,” Yuwadee stressed.

Speaking at the “How Thai Retailing Giants are Building the Country into a Shopping Paradise” forum, held on Wednesday by the Harvard Business School Association of Thailand, she said many shopping destinations in Asean had already reduced their import duties on such items in order to lure shoppers – and it would therefore also be a practical move for the Kingdom to make.

“The retail prices of international luxury brands selling in Europe are between 35 per cent and 40 per cent cheaper than [the same items] in Thailand. Many international vendors of luxury brands operate their business in Thailand with a very thin margin, as they need to make their retail prices as close as possible to those in foreign markets,” she explained.

Largest spenders

Yuwadee said that baby boomers and generation-X consumers were the two largest spenders in the shopping industry today, but retailers also needed to trace the demand and behaviour of future shoppers, such as those in the Y and Z generations, in order to offer products and services that meet their shopping requirements, including online shopping.

“Retailers need to create a good complementary between online and offline to serve whatever demands are raised by new-generation shoppers, whether home delivery, shopping online or picking up offline. We need to provide all the services for individual customers to choose from,” she told the forum.

At the same event, Chadatip Chutrakul, CEO of Siam Piwat, said she agreed with Yuwadee’s remarks on defining today’s shopping mall as a person’s “second home, where they can enjoy a good time and get new inspirations”.

In order to make Thailand a true shopping paradise, Thainess should be strategically promoted and exposed to international markets, she suggested.

“To maintain competitiveness in tourism, Thailand needs to promote its distinctive strength of Thainess, as placed in products, services and unique local wisdom. They are the core values of our country,” she said.

“What we have been doing to support the government’s ‘Pracha Rath’ project is trying to bring the best products out of every city. We are enhancing greater standards for the products and adding value to the quality,” Chadatip said, adding that vendors needed to |sell community products with |a greater value and at higher prices.

She also told the audience that ‘millennials’ were soon-to-be consumers that local retailers should increasingly pay attention to.

People in this category are not attached to any brand names, but love to create their own styles. For millennials, she said, everything was about the automated world.

They love their hyper-connected lives and want to explore new things all the time, she added.

“Nowadays, people tend to buy general products online and look for better deals. However, when they go to physical stores and shopping malls, they go for the experience and new inspiration. Retailing is the provision of these experiences,” Chadatip said.

The chief executive also commented on the government’s efforts to promote the arrival of more quality tourists to the country.

“What we have seen is that there are more quality tourists coming to Bangkok. They buy more and stay longer. They don’t come here just to shop, but go everywhere. This is good, as it spreads income to other places around the country,” she said.

Aswin Techajareonvikul, chairman of the executive committee at Big C Supercenter, said his company was ready to be a cogwheel in the government’s policy to make Thailand a major shopping hub in the region.

“We will provide tourists with valuable information, as well as a good experience about Thailand,” he said.

Big C Ratchadamri is a good example of this, as the complex welcomes many tourists from China and Vietnam, he added.

Asean will also draw up a 10-year plan to deepen cooperation with Japan.

Following the 48th Asean Economic Ministers meeting in Vientiane, Laos this week, Commerce Minister Apiradi Tantraporn said that Asean countries had agreed on the 10-year plan to deepen cooperation on trade, service, investment, and consumers protection in the region.

He said that Asean also agreed to set a clear target for each area so it clearly showed whether each action was successful.

“The 10-year plan will create a good economic fundamental for each Asean country, and help strengthen economic growth in the region,” Apiradi said.

During the Vientiane meeting, Asean agreed to cooperate in a number of areas under the AECBlueprint including adjustments in how the nations cooperate in trade and the development of market mechanisms to reduce the impact from non-tariff barriers.

The other areas include deepening cooperation in the service sector and the liberalisation of that sector, tightening cooperation in investment, reviewing restrictions in investment protection, and promoting investment.

The grouping also aims to promote knowledge gathering, increase consumer confidence, and lift border trading.

As an Asean partner, Japan has agreed to draw the 10-year strategic partnership plan with the grouping so that both sides will tighten cooperation in many sectors. The closer cooperation with Japan relates to human resource development, the development of small and medium-sized enterprises, the development of industries in the Mekong River sub-region, and innovation development.

During the Vientiane meeting, Asean also agreed to revise the Asean-Australia-New Zealand free-trade agreement, and agreed on the Asean-United States transparency measure to reduce unnecessary limitations on trade in goods and strengthen cooperation between both sides.

Asean also plans to boost cooperation with China in the manufacturing sector by increasing efficiency, and strengthen cooperation with China and its other eight partner countries – South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, India, Russia, the United States, and Canada – in trade, investment and other economic issues.

Economic ministers meeting in Laos, which holds the Asean chairmanship this year, said jointly that growth in the 10-nation group’s US$2.4 trillion economy should recover to 4.7 per cent next year due to “strong private and public consumption and improved efficiency in infrastructure.”

“The region is exposed to … continued moderation in the Chinese economy, to uncertainties over the new relationship between the UK and the EU after Brexit,” the statement said, adding thatAsean remained committed to further integration.

Import duties on 99.2 per cent of tariffs in Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand and 90.9 per cent in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam have been eliminated, the ministers said..

About a quarter of the group’s total trade of US$2.3 trillion is intra-Asean. China is Asean’s top external partner, with 15 per cent of the total, followed by Japan, the European Union and the United States.

The countries also said they aim to harmonise economic strategies, recognise each other’s professional qualifications, improve custom clearance and intellectual property rules, and close the development gap between the poorer members – Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar – and the rest of the region.

They also agreed to enhance the connectivity of their transportation infrastructure and communications, better facilitate electronic transactions, integrate industries to promote regional sourcing, and enhance private-sector involvement in the economy. – Reuters

Asean’s closer economic integration is considered a major step forward from what has been considered since the earliest days of its existence as a political project for peaceful regional relations.

A joint report by AmCham Singapore and the US Chamber of Commerce published yesterday showed that 53 per cent of the US companies thought Asean has become more important in terms of worldwide revenue in the past two years. About two thirds said it will become more important in the next two years.

Vietnam, Indonesia and Myanmar were the top destinations for the US companies’ expansion plans within the region, with Singapore, Laos and Brunei the least preferred.

Corruption, transparency and good governance remained key challenges for the regional outlook, the report showed.

– Reuters

Speaking at a seminar held by the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission, the well-known Canadian author suggested that the Kingdom ensure its telecom spectrum is not locked up by a handful of organisations and that it is freely available for education, healthcare, wealth creation and other public benefits.

Pointing out that firms five years old or less are creating 80 per cent of all new jobs, Tapscott said the country should build conditions in which entrepreneurs can flourish.

“Nearly 20 per cent of the students will graduate with a business. They will create products and services that people want,” he said.

Since nations in the digital economy era will need young people who are “digital natives” to move forward, Thailand should also try to boost its birth rate and review its immigration policy, he said.

While the first Internet era led to inequality “that’s behind Donald Trump, the Brexit and a lot of problems that the world has today”, Tapscott said the second generation of Internet, powered by blockchain technology, could come with both promises and perils.

He also described the potential of blockchain, the technology behind the bitcoin, to reinvent democracy, reform education, allow firms to do real-time audit, change the way central banks work, disrupt financial service industry and many other possibilities.

Blockchain will bring the “Internet of value” in which any asset, from money to music, can be sent and stored transparently. It can also introduce a new way for governments to engage with citizens, he explained.

Rather than provide all services by itself, he said, governments could become a platform that releases raw data and lets the public contest for creating value from this data, such as coming up with the best ideas for education reform. The government can also use the technology to conduct digital brainstorming sessions with millions of its citizens.

Digital economy can bring prosperity and joy if the nation can ensure collaboration, intelligence sharing and instil trust among its citizens, like a murmuration of starlings, he concluded.