After the recent visit to the UK, Deputy Commerce Minister Suvit Maesincee said that Thailand and the United Kingdom had committed to ensuring bilateral trade growth to ensure Brexit would not affect trade and economic cooperation.

“The FTA should help promote trade and investment growth between the two sides though the UK will exit the EU. The UK is one of our major export markets among EU countries. Thailand will try to ensure market access under the bilateral trade pact with the UK after its exit from the European Union,” Suvit said.

Thailand and the UK have also agreed to establish the Thai-UK Business Leadership Council, to boost cooperation between private enterprises and provide suggestions to the governments in improving the business environment and facilitating trade and investment growth for both sides.

The ceremony to set up the council was witnessed by UK Rolls Royce’s International Advisory Board and PTT Plc chief executive officer Tevin Vongvanich. Thai and UK business people will forge closer cooperation in various sectors under the council platform. Areas of cooperation include creative economy, technology transfer and innovation, and to find trade promotion measures between the two countries.

The first meeting of the council will be hosted by Thailand in September or October this year.

Thailand has also encouraged Rolls Royce to move its investment to Thailand from Singapore as Thailand has a policy to support the aviation industry, which is one of the targeted industries under the Thailand 4.0 Model to promote high-technology industries.

With the impact from the Brexit weakening the pound sterling, Thai goods have become more expensive. The Thai government will try to promote Thai goods and their image among British consumers so they will continue to buy the products despite prices going up by about 15 per cent, Suvit added.

According to the ministry, average two-way trade was worth US$3.66 billion (Bt128 billion). The UK is Thailand’s second-largest trading partner among EU members and 19th in the world market. In the first five months of this year, two-way trade was worth $2.24 billion, with exports from Thailand valued at $1.49 billion.

PromptPay is the first stage of the national e-payment scheme. Official registration for PromptPay took effect on Friday. It will enable people to make electronic transactions easily, by using their national identity or mobile-phone numbers.

Banks accepted pre-registration for the scheme from July 1-14, and according to the Bank of Thailand, 9.7 million signed up.

Of that total, 8.1 million chose to access the service by linking their ID numbers with their savings accounts and 1.6 million opted to use their mobile-phone numbers.

Anuchit told The Nation that if 20-30 per cent of individual savings accounts are linked to PromptPay, e-payments would significantly increase, moving Thailand towards becoming a cashless country.

Yos Kimsawatde, head of Thai Bankers’ Association’s Payment System Office, said the proportion of cashless payments in Thailand was expected to rise to 50-60 per cent of the total within five years from the current 30 per cent if there are enough electronic data capture (EDC) devices nationwide.

Earlier, the TBA aimed for 50-60 per cent of transactions to be cashless by 2020, up from 25 per cent at that time, and e-payments to account for 60-70 per cent of total value, up from 30 per cent.

At present, there are about 300,000 EDC units in Thailand.

If the targets are reached, the overall cost of cash management will be reduced by 50 per cent from the current level of more than Bt900 billion, or 0.8 per cent of gross domestic product.

According to the BOT, the value of e-payments last year was Bt282.92 billion, up from Bt266.31 billion in 2014.

Interbank fund transfers are smaller than in-house transfers because of the fees charged to senders.

Last year, interbank fund transfers totalled Bt18.17 billion against Bt15.9 billion in 2014.

Automated teller machines are the No 1 channel for interbank transfers, followed by Internet/mobile banking and bank counters.

Under the first phase of PromptPay, transferors will not need transferees’ bank details to send money from October 31 onwards and the fee for payments will be exempted for transactions of up to Bt5,000. The transferors will be charged Bt2 for transactions valued between Bt5,001 to Bt30,000, Bt5 for those between Bt30,001 and Bt100,000, and Bt10 for anything above Bt100,000.

The banks will maintain their current fees for all cash transactions until the end of 2019.

After that their fees for cash transactions via bank counters and ATMs will match the actual cost, and this will encourage consumers to migrate from cash to cashless transactions, Anuchit has said.

PromptPay fees will apply also for bill-payments and request-to-pay services in the second phase of the project, which will be implemented in December.

Commerce Minister Apiradi Tantraporn will lead the Thai negotiation team in Turkey on Tuesday to Thursday for the first round of talks, which have been postponed since January.

Sunanta Kangvalkulkij, deputy director-general of the Trade Negotiations Department, who will be a chief negotiator for the FTA, said the negotiations were delayed due to terrorist attacks in Turkey. Initially it was hoped negotiations would conclude at the end of the year.

Sunanta said that despite the delay, Thai and Turkish officials have continued to talk about the FTAunofficially to prepare the groundwork for official negotiations.

Under the FTA, Thailand and Turkey plan to immediately eliminate tariffs for 90 per cent of trade in goods for both sides. Thailand is considered a gateway for Turkey to penetrate Asean, while Turkey could be a gateway for Thailand to tap Eastern Europe.

On Tuesday, Apiradi will be joined by Turkey’s economic minister.

A feasibility study for the FTA found that it would help increase Thai economic growth by 0.03 per cent a year and be worth up to US$76.7 billion (Bt2.7 trillion). It was found that Thailand’s exports would expand 0.02 per cent and earn more by $33 million.

The Commerce Ministry reported two-way trade between Thailand and Turkey in 2014 accounted for 0.30 per cent of the Kingdom’s total trade. Bilateral trade was worth $1.37 billion.

Trade between the two nations in the first five months of this year was $565.1 million, whileThai exports to Turkey were up 5.5 per cent and were worth $454 million. Imports grew 28.9 per cent to $110.8 million.

Major export products from Thailand to Turkey included air-conditioners and parts, motor cars, parts and accessories, polymers of ethylene, and rubber.

Major import goods from Turkey to Thailand include garments, yarn and fibre, machinery and parts, and vegetables.

“Everything is in place but the missing component is the private sector, which has not yet stood up,” said the minister in his keynote speech at the Thailand Management Association conference yesterday.

He said students were still reluctance to take science and technology courses – not because they did not want to do so, but because there were a lack of career paths offered in the corporate sector in this area. The corporate sector has not paid enough attention to R&D and innovation activities, he added.

The government made the historic decision of including the Science and Technology Ministry as part of its economic team for the first time after Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak took charge of the economic affairs late last year.

Pichet said the government had come up with many promotional packages to promote R&D and innovation, but they were under-utilised, especially the 300 per cent tax deduction allowance for R&D and innovation expenditure.

Thailand’s R&D spending rose steadily from 0.6 per cent of gross domestic product last year to 0.7 per cent this year, and is projected at 0.8 per cent next year. However, the figures should be higher and more contribution from the private sector is needed to achieve that.

“Now we’re at an important crossroads where science and innovation have to become a tool to shift Thailand out of the middle-income trap,” he said. Pichet said the government would shortly unveil a “governance structure” for the national research system and was expected to officially inaugurate Food Innopolis, the first R&D and innovation hub in the country, this October.

The ministry is organising roadshows overseas to try and entice key multinational food players to join the planned food industry cluster as well as discussing with the Ministry of Finance a plan to exempt taxes for top-notch researchers who work at the Food Innopolis.

The government is considering setting up a Bt10 billion fund to support startups, and transfer a fund for small and medium-sized enterprises and an Asian Development Bank loan facility so they are under the responsibility of the Science Ministry.

To promote startups throughout the country, the Science and Technology Ministry will organise venues for startups to showcase their works in Chiang Mai, Khon Kaen, and Phuket provinces over the next few months.

“In Phuket we will hold it at a marina. Startups will pitch their works on a yacht. We hope CNN may be interested in covering it,” he said.

The minister is also talking with Chulalongkorn University’s new president Bundhit Eua-arporn over a plan to turn Siam Square into a “startup district.”

“[We are] considering how to create an atmosphere [so Siam Square] is not only a shopping place for Chula students,” he said.

Vasit Taepaisitphongse, president of Betagro, said the leading Thai agro-industry and food processing company invested in an R&D facility at Science Park 11 years ago and now spends of 0.4 per cent of its sales turnover on R&D.

It aims to increase the figure to 1 per cent by investing wisely.

Up to Bt66 billion of the total will be spent by the government on infrastructure projects, and it will sign contracts for 18-19 projects worth a total of Bt1.4 trillion. The remaining Bt400 billion will be invested by private companies that will receive tax privileges from the Board of Investment.

Apisak noted that the Bt400-billion private-sector estimate was based only on those companies receiving BOI incentives, and the committee believes other firms that did not apply for incentives will also invest during the remaining months. Private-sector investment in the second half is expected to be in such high-potential industries as food, biotechnology, software, auto accessories and electronics.

Meanwhile, the 18-19 government infrastructure projects that will kick off this year include the railway and motorway systems. Contracts will be signed early in the fourth quarter, with construction getting under way before year-end. Only one of the projects in the master plan, a Thai-Japanese rail project, will be delayed, with contract signing to begin next year, the finance minister said.

“Aggressive investment in the last quarter will boost the country’s economic growth to 3.2 per cent for this year, although the country could face unpredictable situations from global economic risks,” he said.

The director of the IMD World Competitiveness Centre told a Thailand Management Association conference in Bangkok yesterday that the current “massive trend in innovations” would mean the next generation will witness as many innovations as mankind has seen in the past 2,000 years.

Citing a report from the United States’ National Bureau of Economic Research, which found 20 per cent of all new jobs in that country were created by companies less than one year old, and businesses with less than five years accounted for two-thirds of all jobs created in there, Bris said that in the new-economy era, educational institutions should also be able to perform the role of job creation.

“Education institutes are not the only innovation hubs,” he said, referring to the Thai government’s plan to develop industrial clusters with collaboration between the public and private sectors and educational institutions.

Bris also spoke about innovations in public-sector policies in some countries to foster innovation and attract talent, such as the “e-residency” programme of Estonia and a lifetime waiver of income taxes for information-technology |professionals implemented by many countries.

While many of the world’s innovations are being created in Eastern Europe, they end up in the US because of funding and capital-market development factors.

He said Thailand was on the right path in enhancing its competitiveness, since it had decided to focus on particular industries such as logistics, tourism and agriculture, though it would need to work more on establishing trust between its public and private sectors.

“We’ve found there is a lack of trust between the private sector [and] the public sector. I think this is one of the key issues in building competitiveness in Thailand,” he said.

Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak raised the example of China’s success in creating millions of entrepreneurs or “mass start-ups”, with universities as a core mechanism.

“Whether we can compete does not depend on the government, it depends on the ‘new players’. How competent are these warriors?” he said.

“Orchestrating” the collaboration between the public and private sectors and educational institutions is crucial if Thailand wants to break through its “middle-income trap” and move to value-based industries, he said.

Isara Vongkusolkit, chairman of the Thai Chamber of Commerce and Board of Trade, said that since attracting young talent was the most important thing that a country has to do, he was preparing to submit a proposal to the prime minister to reform the immigration procedures dividing immigrant groups into four categories, in a bid to draw in global talents and making them fond of Thailand.

Since the farm and service sectors each represent 40 per cent of the country’s workforce, it is crucial to strengthen their competitiveness, he said.

The agriculture sector, especially rice farming, whose productivity is half that of Indonesia’s and much lower than Malaysia’s, has to go more towards “mechanisation” to boost yield per rai.

He said the 11th National Economic and Social Development plan was good “but implementation is not”.

PTT CEO Tevin Vongvanich said Thailand was the only country in Asean that climbed up on the IMD’s global competitiveness ranking, though only two ranks up, this year. Nevertheless, he was disappointed that the country’s ranking in infrastructure criteria was still near the bottom of the total 60 economies ranked in the survey.

Wallop Kittiwiwat, the PEA’s assistant governor for operations and maintenance, said the state agency had set up a team to draw up the details of the plan to establish the centre, including where it would be located.

Wang Yifan, managing director of Huawei Technologies (Thailand), said: “The innovation centre will be the first of its kind delivered by Huawei specifically for the power industry. People will be able to learn about innovative technology development, so that they can gain and apply knowledge and know-how to support energy-security improvement.”

Huawei has been providing services to the electric-power industry for more than 20 years, with its products and solutions used by more than 160 power companies in 65 countries.

Huawei and the PEA are co-hosting the two-day “Intelligent Power Grid Summit” under the theme “Leading New ICT, Building a Better Connected Intelligent Grid” in Bangkok, which ends today.

Wang said Huawei Thailand’s revenue grew by about 34 per cent year on year in the first half of 2016, mainly contributed by its consumer business group.

Meanwhile, Wallop said the PEA would pilot the installation of an advanced metering infrastructure project in Pattaya.

It is expected to call for bids late this year to procure the system integrator to develop the project on a turnkey basis.

The project is to be completely developed in two years. The PEA has budgeted around Bt1 billion for it.