Sarote Suwattigul, deputy director-general of the Foreign Trade Department, said yesterday that the ministry and relevant government agencies had found evidence that those 17 firms had used Thai nominees to hold majority stakes in businesses in the FBA’s Annex III list to hide actual foreign ownership.

Two Chinese persons were using Thai IDs so that that they could hold majority shares in a businesses related in tourism. One Thai who owned one of the ID cards has been caught, while the other has eluded authorities.

The 17 companies in question were conducting tourism-related businesses such as hotels, transport companies, bus services, passenger boats, souvenir shops and restaurants.

The department has suspended all business transactions such as shareholder restructuring of the 17 firms while the investigation is deepened. If any of the companies is found guilty, the department will withdraw its business licence and take legal action.

The companies will also face an in-depth probe by the department, the Department of Special Investigation, and the Revenue Department.

If found in breach of the FBA, foreigners and their Thai nominees can be subject to fines of Bt100,000 to Bt1 million and/or three years in prison. Meanwhile, the department reported that new business registrations in the first five months of this year declined 2 per cent to 25,800.

Despite the slight drop, the department says it is still confident that the number of new companies will reach the target of 60,000-65,000 this year, thanks to the government’s economic stimulation measures and accelerating economic growth.

Last month, the number of new companies dropped by 3 per cent year on year to 4,366, but increased by 10 per cent from April.

In the first five months, 5,576 companies shut down operations, up by 2 per cent year on year. Last month, the number of closures decreased slightly, by 0.6 per cent, to 971 companies.

Kasititorn Pooparadai, senior director of policy research at the NSTDA, said yesterday that the communications market grew more slowly last year, at 7.3 per cent to Bt535.98 billion.

Communications service was the largest portion at 57.7 per cent.

Mobile non-voice service still played an important role in the communications-service market. It is expected to continue healthy growth of 41.2 per cent to Bt151.84 billion, versus 21.5 per cent to Bt107.54 billion last year.

Mobile voice service is forecast to continue decreasing by 13 per cent from Bt108.86 billion in 2015 to Bt97.71 billion in 2016.

Internet service, excluding mobile Internet or mobile data, is expected to grow 10.9 per cent to Bt59.39 billion, which is slightly faster than 10.1 per cent last year.

The data-communication-service market is also experiencing slight growth at only 5.4 per cent, while growing 5.2 per cent to Bt14.3 billion last year.

However, data communication is still growing while voice communication service is still declining. Voice slipped 7.4 per cent in 2015 and is expected to fall 12.1 per cent in 2016 to Bt13.01 billion.

International voice-communication service is also going faster downhill, losing 24.6 per cent this year after dipping 16.6 per cent last year. The main disrupters are chat and over-the-top services.

The communications-equipment market in 2016 is expected to soar by 42 per cent to Bt50.86 billion, increasing from 31-per-cent growth in 2015. The key factors are the investment in 4G networks.

However, the mobile-phone market is slowing down, from 12.9-per-cent growth in 2015 to only 3.1-per-cent growth to Bt106.96 billion in 2016.

In the mobile-phone market, smartphones are expected to continue growing at 3.5 per cent to Bt106.7 billion this year, while feature phones are expected to reach only 260 million this year against Bt675 million last year.

The fixed-line telephone market is also continuing to contract – by 10.9 per cent in 2016 after shrinking 14.1 per cent in 2015.

Normally, interbank money transfers attract a charge of Bt25 for a transaction of up to Bt10,000, while the fee for making a transfer of between Bt10,001 and Bt50,000 is Bt35.

The 15 commercial banks and four state-run banks will allow people to register with the PromptPay service from July 15, although some banks will open for pre-registration on July 1.

PromptPay requires transferees to link their mobile-phone number or National ID number to their bank deposit account, said Tongurai Limpiti, deputy governor for Financial Institutions Stability at the Bank of Thailand.

The new money-transfer system includes payments made to merchants, with recipients able to provide a mobile-phone number or ID number instead of their bank-account details.

Under the first phase of PromptPay, transferors will not need transferees’ bank details to send money from October 31 onwards.

While the fee for payments will be waived for transactions of up to Bt5,000, there will be a charge of Bt2 for transactions of Bt5,001 to Bt30,000, Bt5 for those between Bt30,001 and Bt100,000, and Bt10 for anything above Bt100,000.

PromptPay’s fees will be applied for bill payment and request-to-pay services under the second phase of the project, which will be implemented in December, said Anuchit Anuchitanukul, adviser to the Finance Ministry’s National e-Payment project.

Meanwhile, Thai Bankers’ Association members are willing to restructure their interbank money-transfer fees to encourage Thais to switch to national e-payments and turn the country into a cashless society, said Predee Daochai, chairman of the association.

The banks have agreed to maintain fees for all cash transactions until the end of 2019, after which they will be increased in line with the actual cost to encourage consumers to migrate from cash to cashless in order to benefit from a lower fee, he said. Moreover, as PromptPay is not a mobile application because it does not link to the Internet, the system will not be open to cyber-hacking, Anuchit said.

The association and its bank members have jointly invested in laying the infrastructure for PromptPay, along with commitments from all of them to reduce their fees.

When customers see that all players have cut their fees, they will begin to migrate to the new system and the Kingdom will be on the road to a cashless society, he said.

The banks will probably also offer promotions and packages to add value to PromptPay if they want to secure their customer base, as users can move their ID or mobile-phone number to another bank’s deposit account if they are unhappy with their original provider, he added.

PromptPay, as one of the keystones of the National e-Payment project, will in the long run also help prevent corruption because individuals carrying huge cash amounts for deposit or payment purposes will be questioned about the source of the money, the project adviser suggested.

“Domestic travel is projected at more than 75 million trips, up 4 per cent over the first half of 2015, generating an estimated Bt416 billion in tourism receipts, or 6-per-cent growth.”

Both the first and second quarters of 2016 recorded strong increases. In the first quarter, international visits were up 15 per cent and tourism receipts were up 19 per cent. The second quarter is projected to have recorded 9-per-cent growth in international visitors and 14-per-cent growth in tourism receipts.

All of the major source markets affected by the bomb blast at Bangkok’s Ratchaprasong Intersection last year recovered quickly, including mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan.

In addition, long-haul source markets showed a good recovery, particularly Europe.

Domestic travel is projected to improve steadily thanks to signs of a recovery in the Thai economy.

The first quarter of 2016 recorded 37.4 million domestic trips, up by 3.6 per cent, generating an estimated Bt212 billion, an increase of 7 per cent. The second quarter is projected to record an increase of 4.4 per cent to 37.7 million trips, generating an estimated Bt200 billion.

The most popular regions for domestic travel in the first two quarters were Bangkok (18.3 million trips), the Central region (16 million) and the Northeast (13.4 million).

Yuthasak said TAT was forecasting that the third quarter of 2016 would receive Bt635 billion or 14 per cent in receipts from international and domestic tourism. This forecast is based on projected international visitor arrivals of 8.30 million (up 14 per cent), generating an estimated Bt423 billion (up 18 per cent).

The top five markets in terms of tourism receipts are projected as China, Malaysia, Australia, Japan and the United Kingdom.

The positive direction is underlined by various factors. Forward flight bookings to Thailand, particularly for long-haul markets, send a positive sign. Several new routes to Koh Samui from China’s secondary cities including Chengdu and Chongqing have been launched.

Moreover, the “Amazing Thailand Grand Sale” this month and the upcoming “Women’s Journey” project in August will help stimulate travel, TAT says.

However, under the release plan, the government will carefully consider putting aside safety stocks as rice output in the current harvest season is expected to be 15 per cent lower than in the same period last year, while domestic demand is forecast to remain the same – at 10 million tonnes – she said.

Although the government could find buyers for its entire rice stockpile, it would not be able to ship all the stock this year and it will retain a few million tonnes as a carry-over from the new crop harvest, she explained.

There is currently less than 10 million tonnes of rice in the government stockpiles. If the upcom-|ing fourth round of bidding this |year – for 2.23 million tonnes – resulted in around half of the for-|sale rice being sold, around 8 mil-lion tonnes would be left in the |state warehouses, Duangporn |said.

About 3 million tonnes is good quality rice, more than 2 million tonnes is for consumption or processing as feed meal, while the other 3 million tonnes is degraded or Grade C quality rice, which will be destined for the industrial sector, for use in producing biomass, fertiliser and fuel.

With a backdrop of the ongoing drought and high demand in the market, Duangporn said the government would continue with its plan to put 1 million to 2 million tonnes of rice up for bidding next month.

Meanwhile, her department reported yesterday that 64 rice traders took part in the government auction for 2.23 million tonnes of rice.

The proposed price for the bidding is in line with the market price, or slightly lower, which is acceptable, she said.

The director-general also said that with high global demand, Thailand should achieve its target of exporting 9.5 million tonnes of rice this year.

As of Monday, the country had shipped 4.6 million tonnes worth Bt71.68 billion, some 13 per cent higher in volume and 9 per cent higher in value than in the same period last year.

Since the current government came to power, a total of 9.71 million tonnes of rice has been sold out of an original stockpile of 18 million tonnes, generating revenue of Bt115.4 billion, she said.