“No matter how good the plan for ‘Thailand 4.0’ is, if the same group of people still run our R&D [research and development] programmes going forward, nothing is going to happen,” Professor Methi Wecharatana, associate chairman for graduate studies at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, told The Nation.

Ideas, people and tools are the three critical components of a nation to succeed in its innovation drive.

“In short, we need to discuss how industry, and people like us, can help to rethink, retool and re-man for Thailand 4.0,” said Methi, also an adviser to the board of directors of the Association of Thai Professionals in America and Canada (ATPAC).

Methi is scheduled to meet with Deputy Education Minister Teerakiat Jareonsettasin tomorrow to suggest that the government alter its current reform direction on the national R&D system.

He is bringing in his team from the United States for several workshops and conferences held by ATPAC and other agencies in Bangkok from last Friday to August 9.

Among his proposals is for the government to make its 15 national research centres more accountable. Their focuses should be narrowed to key technologies or research areas that are considered crucial to the nation’s success in the future.

New management teams need to be installed.

“When the US wanted to send their men to the moon, they made a clear mandate to reach the goal in 10 years.

“We’ve had these centres for 30 years but they have been [operating] too broadly.

“Money comes after a clear mandate and people to make things happen,” he said.

Pailin Chuchottaworn, a former chief executive officer of PTT and the chairman of the council of the Vidyasirimedhi Institute of Science and Technology, apparently shares Methi’s views on money and other issues.

“Money is not the major issue. Nine state universities already have Bt200-billion annual budgets.

“I don’t agree that we have to pour in billions of baht to build a centre of excellence.”

Pailin, who chaired a government-initiated Pracha Rath subcommittee working on a proposal to remodel the national centres of excellence, said money could be well spent if a competitive environment is created, a key performance indicator to rate their results is installed and the so-called “state-gate” process kills their unsuccessful projects early on.

The Education and Science ministries, which oversee national research agencies, also need to collaborate closely with each other and with the private sector.

No less important is the development of a career path for scientists and researchers.

“We have granted 5,000 fellowships to students to pursue PhDs overseas, and 2,700 of them have already come back. The remaining 2,300 will follow,” he said. “Have we found jobs for them yet?”

The ministry reported that inflation in the first seven months was slightly negative at minus-0.07 per cent after July’s CPI edged up 0.1 per cent year on year.

Month-on-month inflation was minus-0.35 per cent on lower fuel and food prices, the latter decline due to a higher supply of agricultural crops after the end of the harvest season.

For now, the ministry has retained its full-year inflation projection at 0-1 per cent. The projection assumes that the price of Dubai crude oil will average US$30-$40 per barrel, the baht will range between 36 and 38 to the US dollar and gross domestic product will grow by 2.8-3.8 per cent.

However, the ministry will next month review the inflation target, foreseeing that fuel prices, which have shrunk again, could result in lower inflation in the remaining months, Somkiat Triratpan, inspector-general of the ministry and director of its Policies and Trade Strategies Bureau, said yesterday.

In the current third quarter of the year, the ministry expects the quarterly inflation of 0.47 per cent, a slight increase from higher prices of some foods and goods. In the fourth quarter, inflation is expected to increase to 1.42 per cent from last year’s low base.

Somkiat said the expected slight increases in the CPI in the remaining months should benefit the |economy and encourage more spending.

Last month, prices of foods and beverages rose 1.8 per cent, while non-food-and-beverage prices decreased 0.84 per cent.

Core inflation, which excludes volatile food and fuel prices, firmed slightly in July to 0.76 per cent year on year and 0.73 per cent month on month. Average core inflation in the first seven months of the year was 0.73 per cent, which was in line with the Bank of Thailand’s forecast of 0.5-3 per cent.

According to the plan, the park will be located at CAT’s 600-rai (96 hectares) plot in Sri Racha, Chon Buri province . Currently, CAT’s satellite earth station, submarine-cable landing station and data centre are located at the area.

Yesterday CAT Telecom and the IEAT signed a memorandum of understanding to co-study the project for one year. The study will cover the park’s design, planning and construction.

The park will be a centre of IT including for data, cloud computing and the Internet of things. After finishing the study, CAT plans to seek strategic investment partners.

Veerapong Chaiperm, governor of IEAT, said that the park would be located in the eastern economic corridor that the government aimed to promote to serve 10 industrial clusters including automatives, petrochemical and medical to woo more foreign companies.

Surapant Meknavin, acting CAT president, said that the project would support the government’s Thailand 4.0 policy for start-ups.

Thailand 4.0 relates to new-generation industries that rely on innovation. It is believed such industries will help drive the economy and help the country escape the middle-income trap

Surapant said that CAT planned to install 100 billion bits per second of international circuits at the park to link with other Asean countries to serve more demand for data services.

Only state-owned Sky Net and selected media groups were invited by the Ministry of Planning and Finance to attend the event.

The policy said it aimed to foster long-term conservation and the fair allocation of natural resources among regions and states to promote national reconciliation.

Its four objectives were to help support the emergence of a federal, democratic union for national reconciliation; ensure better economic conditions for equitable regional development; help produce a qualified young workforce and set up an inclusive economic system that fostered innovation.

The 12-point policy aims to boost a transparent public financial system and ensure the development of state-owned enterprises.

It mentioned the possible privatisation of adaptable and lucrative state-owned businesses and providing assistance to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) which can create jobs and economic development.

Human resources and voca-tional education needed to be promoted, the government announced.

It said the development of basic infrastructure, such as the power supply, roads and jetties, would be a priority. It also mentioned data ID cards and digital government. Jobs needed to be created, especially to encourage expats to return.

The policy called for a diversified economy which provided food sufficiency and promoted exports.

Traders should prepare for a massive inflow of foreign investment and the establishment of a market-oriented economy. It promised a monetary system to support the sustainable development of urban areas that could support long-term environmental conservation, extend public areas and conserve cultural heritage.

The announcement said it would establish an effective and fair taxation system to boost government coffers. It would protect people’s property and intellectual-property rights to foster the technology sector, in coordination with the rest of Asean.

State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, who attended the ceremony, said that the policy on basic infrastructure would be released soon.

Kyaw Win, minister for planning and finance, said “We aim to reduce state-ownership and red tape and turn SMEs into big employers and multinational corporations.”

The ministry promised to promote the country’s economy within its first 100 days in power, leading to widespread criticism that the country’s economy remained unchanged.

Soe Thein, deputy managing director from the Asia Green Development Bank, said: “These points are too general. I expect the government will release more detailed policies. It is very easy to say in general but nothing has materialised yet despite the changes to the state-owned entities since 1990. This announcement will have little significance if there are no any clear-cut policies to follow.”

Top officials of San Miguel Corp, Malaysia’s MTD Group and the group of businessman Manuel V. Pangilinan said they were keen on exploring the project. An executive of Ayala Corp said they were withholding comment until further details were released.

The Department of Transportation last week announced it was open to accepting unsolicited proposals for the Mindanao railway project.

This mode of procurement was avoided during the Aquino administration, which had a public bias against unsolicited proposals. This refers to project proposals offered by the private sector to be eventually placed under a Swiss challenge, where rival groups are allowed to submit a better offer than the proponent for a chance to win the deal.

Cherie Mercado, transportation department spokesperson, said in a text message that the Mindanao railway line was a “high priority” project but she declined to give added details, suggesting the project was still in the early stage of planning.

She said the department’s railways group still needed to consult with stakeholders, meaning affected communities, business groups and local government units, “on the best alignment” for the project.

Nevertheless, San Miguel Corp president Ramon Ang said they would study the project, as did Ferdinand Inacay, president of the railways unit of Pangilinan-led Manila Electric Co.

MTD Philippines president Isaac David said his group would like to participate in the project, but only as part of a much bigger consortium of companies, given its massive scale.

“It’s a project that we know to construct. However, the project does not only involve construction, it can also involve real estate development,” David said.

Ayala Corp managing director John Eric Francia said the group needed more details, as it did not have adequate information on the government project.

“We still don’t know the financial viability of the project,” David said.

The project has been on the drawing board for years, but it never materialised. Historically, railway projects have been focused in Luzon, in particular the capital district of Metro Manila, the centre of the country’s political and economic influence and also where road congestion is at its worst.

That policy has shifted with President Duterte, Davao’s long-time mayor and the first Philippine President to hail outside Luzon in more than five decades.

The National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) said last year that it was conducting the study for the Mindanao rail project, which was envisioned to link Cagayan de Oro, Iligan, Zamboanga City, Butuan, Surigao, Davao and General Santos.

Earlier reports said the railway project, once finished, would span 2,000 kilometres and would be broken up into several phases.

“The proposed railway transport service will play a major role toward improvement of Mindanao’s intra-island accessibility, linkages and seamless multimodal transport networks,” Neda said in its terms of reference in seeking consultants for the project.

The growth rate was lower than the 10 per cent registered during the same period last year.

The processing and manufacturing sector, which accounts for more than 70 per cent of the total value of the industrial sector, grew 9.9 per cent in the first seven months, electricity production and distribution saw an increase of 11.6 per cent, while the mineral industry decreased 2.7 per cent.

Economists from GSO said the low growth rate was due to the decline in product consumption as the consumption index in June increased by only 0.7 per cent over May, while May’s consumption index grew 5.2 per cent over April.

Industrial products saw high growth, such as television which rose 79 per cent, rolled steel grew 23.5 per cent, automobiles increased 22 per cent and animal feed jumped 19.7 per cent, besides cement that rose 15.7 per cent and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) by 14.8 per cent.

Meanwhile, industrial output of motorbikes and leather and footwear fell 1.2 per cent and 1.3 per cent, respectively, while sugar, crude oil and mobile phones declined 5.5 per cent, 6.8 per cent and 8.5 per cent, respectively.

According to GSO, the capacity for improvement in industrial production in the rest of this year was limited as the average inventory rate in the first six months was 70 per cent, declining only 1.5 per cent compared to the previous five months. Provinces where the IIP saw high growth were Binh Duong at 8.5 per cent; Dong Nai at eight per cent; Hai Phong at 16 per cent; and Da Nang at 11.5 per cent; besides Bac Ninh at 9.7 per cent; HCM City at 7.1 per cent; and Ha Noi at 6.8 per cent.

The southern region’s industrial production expanded by 7.5 per cent year-on-year in the first half of this year, according to a report by the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

In the first half of the year, fines imposed by the SEC jumped more than 10 fold when compared to the same period last year.

According to SEC data, from January to June fine payments totalled Bt492 million as part of settlements between wrongdoers and the SEC, compared to only Bt34 million in the same period last year.

For the whole of 2015, fine payments totalled Bt91 million.

SEC secretary-general Rapee Sucharitakul told The Nation that the market regulator, the overseer of the Stock Exchange of Thailand and other capital markets, had committed to more specific timelines in various cases, resulting in faster criminal sanctions including hefty fines.

According to SEC data, the biggest fine in the first half of the year amounted to Bt447 million and was imposed on nine people for manipulation of UMI stock in 2013.

The SEC also imposed a fine of Bt33 million on several executives of CP Group found guilty of insider trading relating to shares of wholesale store chain Makro.

The SEC investigation found the executives illegally used insider information, which was not disclosed to the public, to buy shares of Makro in April 2013 when CP All – a listed unit of CP Group – was in the process of acquiring a majority stake in Makro in a multibillion-baht deal.

The SEC also imposed a fine of more than Bt8 million on a listed company’s executives who abused insider information to trade shares of Diphaya Insurance.

Rapee, however, declined to comment specifically on these controversial cases, but noted that the SEC had accelerated its internal processes in handling criminal complaints and sanctions by removing bottlenecks.

He said social media was playing a bigger role in helping create wider public awareness about the rules and regulations of the capital market, especially with regard to stock manipulation and abuse of insider information.

Besides hefty fines, industry sources said those found to have |violated the rules received some form of social sanction, as in the |case of CP Group and other |company executives who faced social media calls to quit after being hit with the SEC’s criminal sanctions.

In a bid to help executives of listed companies improve their handling of confidential and market-sensitive information, the SEC has distributed copies of a manual on the principles of good practice to firms.

The manual, based on guidelines used by the Governance Institute of Australia, urges listed firms to implement internal measures to prevent leak of confidential in-|formation and abuses while stressing that there should be confi-|dentiality agreements with persons who have access to that data.

Besides stock-market trading, the SEC is also tasked with approving and regulating equity securities offered to the public, including initial public offerings of stocks and warrants as well as debt securities offerings and asset management businesses such as mutual, provident, property and infrastructure funds.

The equity capital market is worth about Bt14 trillion while the debt securities market is valued at about Bt4 trillion.

In an exclusive interview with The Nation, Russell Young, Sojern’s managing director for Asia-Pacific, said the Thai travel and hospitality sectors should leverage the country’s online reputation to cash in on this trend.

“The first step is to focus on speaking to tourists that are actively looking to visit Thailand, which will result in higher levels of engagement and better results. Work with marketing solutions that can enable them to reach travellers as they are starting to consider and compare hotel and flight options,” Young said.

Another option is to target travellers who were headed to neighbouring countries and tempt them with relevant messaging regarding the allure of Thailand as a destination before they finalise their plans.

“This is a key way ahead [for] alternative holiday destinations like Vietnam and the Philippines, whilst [helping] the current tourism industry [to] flourish,” he said.

Sojern’s “Global Travel Insights” survey found that Bangkok was among the five most commonly searched destinations for short-haul travel in the Asia-Pacific region for the current quarter. This report was based on search and booking behaviour provided by major airlines, online travel agents, meta-search engines and other sources.

Bangkok was ranked No 3 after Singapore and Tokyo but ahead of Taipei and Osaka for online travellers from Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Asia-Pacific region.

“For all-around value and variety of holiday experience, Thailand is still unbeatable,” he said as an explanation for the high ranking. Also critical is “the brand of the ‘Land of the smiles’, where the beaches, weather, food, people and culture are well established as a place where you relax, have fun and experience something new”.

Improvements in infrastructure and connectivity are also key factors. For instance, direct flights to Phuket from the Middle East and Europe have increased. Meanwhile, Don Mueang International Airport’s second terminal is now catering to an increasing pool of budget carriers from China and across the region as Suvarnabhumi Airport is running at over capacity, enabling the country to continue to grow visitor numbers in an organised and efficient manner.

He said the military-installed regime had re-established the reputation of Thailand as a place of relative stability and peace, while the Erawan Shrine bombing was fading from most tourists’ memories.