Authorities, including the Tourism Ministry and Tourist Police, have been tackling the illegal business and tourist guide problem for years, but it remains unsolved.

Professional guides should have been busy, as the inbound business has been surging for years.

In fact, more than half of certified guides are unemployed. Many of them are seeking new jobs, as theirs have been snatched away by non-certified guides coming from overseas.

Chinese-speaking guides alone are expected to number 5,000-6,000 and half of them are non-registered.

Up to 80 per cent of Chinese on tour packages are travelling with non-certified operators and non-registered tourist guides.

“This is a major cause of local certified guides losing their jobs. We are urging authorities to push more measures to solve this problem,” he said.

The association predicts that 20,000-22,000 Chinese tourists arrive in the country per day.

As the biggest market source, China is expected to send more than 8 million visitors to Thailand this year.

The Korean, Russian and Scandinavian markets are facing the same problem – a shortage of registered guides.

Tourism Minister Kobkarn Wattanavrangkul said her ministry has been cracking down on illegal businesses by working with police and local authorities to detect nominees in major provinces such as Phuket and Bangkok.

This year to April 15, 374 non-registered tourist guides were arrested by Tourist Police – 130 in January, up nine from the same month last year; 125 in February, up from seven; 102 in March, up from 10; and 17 from April 1-15, up from four at the same time last year.

The government would continue addressing the problems of nominees, illegal operators and fake guides as part of plans to enhance the country’s image as a quality destination.

This year to April 24, the country has welcomed 11.1 million international tourists, up 13.8 per cent from the same period last year.

Due to strong growth, the ministry has revised up its arrival projection for this year from 30 million to 32 million.

The project has been developed by a Thai renewable-energy firm, Impact Electrons Siam Co.

Laos has high hopes for the project and views it as a prototype for the development of the country’s alternative-energy source, which has the potential to support a sustainable energy future for all.

Chantho Milattanpheng, deputy director of the Institute of Renewable Energy and Promotion under the Laotian Ministry of Energy and Mines, pointed out the potential of Monsoon Wind Power as a major advance in Laos’ alternative-energy sector while giving a speech at the “Sustainable Energy and Technology Asia Exhibition and Conference”.

Benefits for all

He said the wind farm would undoubtedly benefit all parties, including Laos, Thailand or even theAsean region, since it is expected to have Asean’s largest wind-energy capacity, generate clean energy to be sold at a fair price and promote the well-being of the community surrounding the project site.

In an effort to facilitate alternative-energy development, Laos plans to increase renewable energy to 30 per cent of the total energy supply by 2025.

The 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) held in Paris last December saw delegates from Thailand, Laos and 144 other countries sign a pact that aims to avert the rise in global temperatures beyond the threshold of 2 degrees Celsius.

At this forum Thailand also pledged to cut emissions of greenhouse gas by 20-25 per cent by 2030 from 2010 levels, equivalent to a cut in GHG emissions of about 111 million to 139 million tonnes.

Monsoon Wind Power is expected to avoid 67 million tonnes of GHG emissions throughout the project lifecycle compared with fossil-fuel power plants.

Thailand’s Cabinet on April 5 gave its approval to the country’s participation in the “Partnership for Market Readiness” programme, under which the World Bank will provide Thailand, as a PMR member, with a US$3-million (Bt105 million) grant for the development of initiatives that will help Thailand achieve its GHG emission-reduction goal.

According to World Bank statistics, Thailand is the 22nd-largest GHG emitter in the world and the fifth-largest in the East Asia and Pacific region.

Over the past decade, the energy sector has been the most important source of GHG emissions in the country.

In the latest attempt to complete the traceable supply chain for fisheries, the Fish Marketing Organisation, Fisheries Department, Agriculture Ministry, Command Centre for Combating Illegal Fishing and BOT, together with the Thai Fishery Producers Coalition, yesterday signed a letter of cooperation in setting up a marine-catch purchasing procedure to control the trading of aquatic products and improve the sanitation of fish and fishery products.

The procedure will produce a document to be used as a tool for accurate tracing of the sources of aquatic animals according to the Fisheries Act.

Poj said Thailand should be upgraded by the EU.

“It might be strange if the country gets the red card. Thailand has tried to solve problems based on laws and technical problems, which should be freed from political issues,” he said.

“Thailand has tried hard to improve our fishing procedures from upstream to downstream, while it has a traceability system to serve laws and technical problems and international fishing standards.

“If the EU really gives Thailand a red card, it needs to clarify the reason in a document to us [the Thai government and private sector] and to the public. Thailand will need to fight back if it is unreasonable,” he said.

A red card would affect Thailand’s image. However, for the trading of fishery products, it may or may not have an effect, as the EU could not ban or force buyers to stop ordering goods from Thailand, he said.

“No matter how Thailand will be rated during the EU’s revision next month, its private companies and the government will continue to tackle illegal fishing and systemise our fishing system along the supply chain so that it could be traceable from catch to table.”

Last year, Thai fishery exports to the EU decreased because of the loss of tax privileges under the Generalised System of Preferences, while the yellow card has not had an impact on trading, only on the country’s image, he said.

For this year, because of the uncertain global economy, Thai fishery exports are expected to be flat, while exports of shrimp and tuna should increase.

Shrimp exports are expected to rise from Bt58 billion last year to Bt70 billion this year and tuna exports from Bt80 billion to Bt90 billion.

The cooperation to set up the electronic Marine Catch Purchasing Document (E-MCPD) and improve sanitation is a good move as it will promote traceability, Poj said.

All the private operators in this industry are also committed to supporting government policy to fix the problem of IUU fishing and human trafficking and to follow Thai and international law, international standards and codes of ethics for the good image of Thai products.

This makes Thailand’s seafood industry sustainable, he said.

The eight fishery-product-related associations that agreed to the MCPD system are the Thai Frozen Food Association, Thai Food Processors’ Association, Thai Shrimp Association, Thai Tuna Industry Association, National Fishery Association of Thailand, Thai Overseas Fishery Association, Thai Fishmeal Association |and Thai Fishmeal Producer Association.

The Cabinet agreed that the deposit guarantee would instead fall to Bt15 million per depositor per bank between August 11, 2016 and August 11, 2018.

It will then be reduced further, to Bt10 million, until August 11, 2019, and lowered again to Bt5 million from August 12, 2019 to August 11, 2020.

The ultimate deposit-protection amount of Bt1 million will become effective on August 12, 2020.

Tanyapong Thamavaranukupt, senior executive vice president and head of retail banking at Krungthai Bank, said the four-year delay in lowering the guarantee amount to Bt1 million was a good thing for KTB and its customers, as it allowed more time to prepare for reducing the impact.

The bank has been preparing itself for a cut since the Deposit Protection Act gave legal authority for the guarantee amount to be reduced, he said.

“The government considers that [a change in] deposit protection should not impact on the economy amid the current slowdown and a drop in lending,” he added.

KTB will now focus more on funding-cost management in order to reduce the effect on its interest margin after cutting the minimum retail rate by 0.255 percentage points.

“We have to take care of those customers to whom the bank used to give a special deposit rate because, now we have cut lending rates, the extra deposit rates for those depositors might have to be adjusted,” the executive explained.

The reduction in its lending rate will affect KTB’s profit in the current quarter, he said.

Chartsiri Sophonpanich, president of Bangkok Bank, said the phased reduction would increase confidence among customers, although the bank itself would not be directly affected and had sufficient liquidity.

However, the impact on the bank of the recent reduction in its lending rate means it will seek additional income from fees and lending to offset some of the revenue from the rate cut. Arthid Nanthawithaya, chief executive officer and deputy chairman of Siam Commercial Bank’s executive committee, said the bank acknowledged that the government might be giving time to the banks to raise their deposits, enabling them to support lending to fuel the sluggish economy.

The recent cut in lending rates will affect SCB’s profit, but the bank will offset the expected decline with other income, including fees, he said.

Kattiya Indaravijaya, president of Kasikornbank, said that while the recent lending-rate cut would affect its profit in the second quarter, the bank would carefully manage its funding cost and expenses – alongside seeking more fee income – in a bid to maintain earnings growth.

The prolonged economic slowdown is having an impact on factory employees because the exporters of outdated products have had to trim OT, Sutapa Amornvivat, chief economist and first executive vice president, said yesterday.

In the fourth quarter of last year, OT pay in the electronics industry fell by 12 per cent and in the auto industry by 1 per cent year on year.

Employees in the North, West and East were especially stretched financially by the loss of OT pay.

Even though the tourism industry is still growing, OT pay to hotel and restaurant workers dropped by 3 per cent. Wholesale and retail OT pay slipped 5 per cent in the quarter.

Manufacturing and service employees have the purchasing power to patronise trading chains and banks, so the decline in income of these people is reflected by rising non-performing loans and the need for higher loan-loss provisions in the banking industry.

“We are following the effectiveness of the government’s stimulus packages to see if they can help enough to [sustain] private consumption,” she said.

Even though the unemployment rate is only 0.9 per cent, among the lowest in the world, the reduction of OT pay is an indicator of the income shock effect.

This will put pressure on private consumption, so the EIC revised down its forecast for private consumption growth to 1.9 per cent this year from 2.1 per cent predicted three months ago.

The research unit of Siam Commercial Bank also cut its forecast for export growth from flat to minus-2.1 per cent this year.

However, the EIC has maintained its growth forecast for 2016 gross domestic product at 2.5 per cent, assuming public investment in the second half will go ahead as scheduled.

The EIC now predicts public investment growth this year will improve to 11 per cent from the 9 per cent predicted earlier.

However, the GDP growth estimate might be lowered from 2.5 per cent if the export sector and public investment do not revive in the second half.

“We don’t see any advanced markets that are heroes to drive the global economy. Even though the US is showing signs of recovery, its employment rate and construction data are not good enough,” Sutapa said.

The Bank of Thailand is expected to leave the policy rate at 1.50 per cent this year because it is giving importance to the efficiency of the policy rate and a suitable rate to discourage search-for-yield investors, she added.