The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) Index will fluctuate between 1,660 and 1,680 points on Friday, Krungsri Securities said.
It added that the index gained positive sentiment from rising oil prices owing to cold weather in the US and the simmering Ukraine-Russia tensions. Mass buy-ups of company shares expected to grow based on their business turnover last year also helped boost the index.
“However, the European Central Bank and Bank of England’s signals that they will tighten the monetary policy to tackle inflation, plus mass sell-offs of shares in response to signs of overbought stocks would pressure the index,” Krungsri Securities said.
It recommends the purchase of the following as an investment strategy:
• PTTEP, TOP, PTTGC, IVL and SPRC, which will benefit from the rising price of oil and gross refining margin.
• BBL, KBANK, KTB and BLA, which will benefit from news of the US interest rate hike.
• IVL, TOP, GULF, SPRC, BANPU, TU, CPF, SPALI, WHA, HMPRO, BLA, JMT, SINGER, JMART, WICE, NER, ITEL, XO, ASK and UBE are expected to grow based on their business turnover last year.
The SET Index closed at 1,669.05 on Thursday, up 1.30 points or 0.08 per cent. Transactions totalled 68.03 billion baht with an index high of 1,673.75 and a low of 1,664.09.
CP Group is the only Thai company that has been assessed out of 66 companies that have received Bronze Class distinction in the Industrial Conglomerates sector.
Charoen Pokphand Group Co Ltd (CP Group) has been included in the Sustainability Yearbook 2022 compiled by S&P Global.
The yearbook has announced a list of companies, ranking them for sustainability efforts. S&P Global is the world-leading and trusted reference on sustainability. They are widely accepted among investors and economic communities worldwide.
CP Group is the only Thai company that has been assessed out of 66 companies that have received Bronze Class distinction in the Industrial Conglomerates sector.
CP Group’s CEO, Suphachai Chearavanont, said it was a delight to be the only Thai organisation ranked. Its score has to be in the top 5-10 per cent of the industry.
This year, German energy conglomerate Siemens AG ranked first, followed by South Korea’s IT business group SK Business Group (SK Inc).
To be eligible for inclusion in the yearbook, organisations must pass a corporate sustainability assessment rating, which is used to rank the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI). The assessment focuses on business performance, governance and economics, as well as social and environmental dimensions.
“CP Group has a moral compass, to do business with the nation’s best well-being at the forefront of our minds. We create this vision through our 3Hs sustainability strategy: heart – living right; health – living well, and home – living together. The strategy is in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and also emphasises on operating in accordance with ESG [Environment, Social, Governance]’s guidelines, which is to conduct business that takes into account the environment, society and corporate governance., This includes working proactively to push the world agenda on many issues,” he said.
“We consider this to be both an opportunity and a challenge for every business unit under CP Group. This allows us to increase business capabilities along with creating value for all stakeholders to achieve the CP Group’s Sustainability Goals for 2030, while still remaining a leading global company in sustainability. Through this strategy we are creating a balance for both business and society,” Suphachai said.
The Sustainability Yearbook 2022 included 7,554 companies in the global assessment, and only 716 companies from 61 industries were selected to be ranked in the report. This year, only 41 Thai companies were included.
Aside from the CP Group, its subsidiaries Charoen Pokphand Foods Plc, CP All Plc, and True Corporation Plc are included in the yearbook.
Several other Thai companies were included in this report, such as Thai Beverage Plc, PTT Global Chemical Plc, Banpu Plc, and Mitr Phol Sugar Co Ltd.
Huawei launched the “Seeds for the Future” programme in Thailand for the first time in 2008. More than 215 universities students have participated in this programme after over 13 years.
Education has become more personalised and hybrid in the past decade. With new digital models emerging, intelligence and the cloud are increasingly critical, supported by fresh innovations in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) that are transforming the education industry.
According to a survey on Thailand’s digital life in 2020 and 2021, Thai people’s use of e-commerce has increased from 37 per cent to 76 per cent, and the ratio of people who work remotely has risen from 17 per cent to 30 per cent.
At the same time, the cloud adoption rate by corporates has rapidly increased from 26 per cent to 70 per cent. By 2030, digital economy is estimated to account for 30 per cent of overall GDP.
The fundamental role of digital education has been highlighted during the pandemic. There is no doubt that Covid-19 has impacted every field and the effects are certainly being felt in education.
In fact, over the last year or so, about 1.5 billion students — 90 per cent of all primary, secondary, and university level students worldwide — have been unable to attend their schools or campuses for at least some period. The urgent need for more equal, accessible, and advanced education resources has now become a global concern.
As Thailand is making strides to become the Asean digital hub, this period of disruption has been transformative as education providers have hurried to adopt smart technologies to ensure education continuity for all.
Supot Teachavorasinskun, dean of Engineering Faculty at Chulalongkorn University, emphasised at “Huawei Cloud and Connect 2022” (HCC), “Nowadays, the physical and the cyber world are integrated. We have to work with Huawei and other partners to integrate the digital world into every knowledge aspect for the lecturers and students. This is unavoidable.”
This trend was echoed by Kamol Keatruangkamala, executive vice president for information technology at King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang. During the HCC event, he stressed that “Covid has accelerated the transformation. If we still think in the same way, in 10 years we won’t be able to maintain the university. So we have to disrupt ourselves with innovative technologies from leading companies like Huawei.”
Higher education in Thailand has become more popular while ICT investment has also increased significantly.
Huawei launched the “Seeds for the Future” programme in Thailand for the first time in 2008. More than 215 universities students have participated in this programme after over 13 years. In 2019, Huawei Asean Academy (Thailand) was established to further support the visionary Thailand 4.0 strategy which so far has provided upskilling and reskilling training to over 41,000 local ICT professionals and over 1,300 SMEs.
Huawei has also provided a number of joint solutions, such as smart campus, smart classroom, and online education solutions for more than 10 educational institutions and universities including top ranking universities in Thailand, such as Chiang Mai University, King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT), King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang (KMITL) and Srinakharinwirot University (SWU). These solutions have ensured that learning never ceases even during the pandemic.
In February 2019, the SWU campus network upgrade was completed. Huawei provided high-bandwidth and low-latency campus networks to improve the wireless network coverage and security, promoting infrastructure-based digital development, and setting a benchmark for campuses.
At the HCC event, Prasert Kanthamanon, senior vice president for Administrative Affairs and Chief Information Officer, KMUTT shared their collaboration with Huawei to make “KMUTT4Life” a reality.
According to Prasert, KMUTT will build a living lab to support endless learning for everyone. Sanya Setpityakul, chief information officer and assistant vice president of Dhurakij Pundit University, added that by Huawei’s expertise it builds a platform to maintain education in the video conference classroom.
Huawei said that it believes the key to a digital and sustainable future lies in a thriving talent foundation. Huawei Thailand’s CEO Abel Deng emphasised that by promoting proactive collaboration with educational institutions, Huawei advocates an ICT talent ecosystem that will benefit Thailand 4.0.
Pattanasak Mongkolwat, the dean of ICT at Mahidol University, expressed appreciation for this strategy. “Huawei has added practical ICT knowledge and practices to our ICT faculty expertise. I believe this will enhance our students’ ability to work and excel in the real world scenarios.”
B.Grimm Power Pcl, Thailand’s leading industrial power producer, has been included in the S&P Global Sustainability Yearbook 2022 for the first time, and awarded with the “Industry Mover” distinction.
B.Grimm Power Pcl, Thailand’s leading industrial power producer, has been included in the S&P Global Sustainability Yearbook 2022 for the first time, and awarded with the “Industry Mover” distinction.
The honours follow B.Grimm Power’s strongest year-on-year score improvement within the Electric Utilities industry.
“At B.Grimm Power, sustainability is the core,” said Dr Harald Link, chairman and president of the company.
“This milestone reflects our commitment to empower the world compassionately, through sustainable business practices covering economic, environmental, and social dimensions underpinned by good governance principles.”
The Sustainability Yearbook ranks global sustainability leaders based on the S&P Global ESG scores evaluated through the annual corporate sustainability assessment.
To be listed in the yearbook, companies must score within the top 15 per cent of their industry and must achieve an S&P Global ESG score within 30 per cent of their industry’s top-performing company. This year, over 7,500 companies were assessed, 716 of which were recognised as yearbook members.
Throughout 2021, B.Grimm Power also earned other recognitions for corporate sustainability performance at local and global levels. These recognitions include an “A” rating from the MSCI ESG Ratings; being named a member of the FTSE4Good Index Series for two years in a row; being part of the ESG 100 Group of Securities from the Thaipat Institute; and being honoured, for four consecutive years, as one of Thailand Sustainability Investment’s list of 146 companies on the Stock Exchange of Thailand with sustainable business operations.
B.Grimm Power also received the “Excellent” (5 stars) rating in the Corporate Governance Report 2021 of the Thai Institute of Directors for two years in a row, which reflects the company’s commitment to promote sustainable business growth under the principles of good governance and responsible value chain management by taking into account the economic, social and environmental impacts, the company said.
Digitization of work is no longer just a buzzword. Fast forward 24 months has been an unexpected longtail impact of COVID-19 and yet we are still bogged down with continuous changing variant one wave after another causing further prolonged periods of lockdowns and worldwide travel restrictions.
This prolonged pandemic crisis had created immense operational backlash and logistical challenges for organizations who had downplayed the first wave of COVID-19 as well as the timely adoption of new Digitization of work to manage a long-term virtual or hybrid workforce.
The significant shifts are evident in forcing many organizations business operation to become ever more digitally agile to sustain, adapt, and thrive in the volatile and fast changing market conditions brought about by COVID-19.
Looking back, in the early wave of pandemic, we have witnessed how digitalization has driven technology’s adoption in the products and delivery of services as well as changes in digitization of work in the organizations. Digitization of work has allowed staff to learn and develop new capabilities, explore new opportunities, and utilize their creativity in ways that benefit to the organization. It has promoted both versatility of a virtual workforce and the opportunity to improve processes, streamline, and increase operational efficiencies within an organization.
With cashflow management visibility and operational budgeting becoming a top priority in many organizations to manage the prolonged pandemic crisis, the next wave of digitalization efforts should be focused on the finance function. Many of the challenges faced in the finance function are a result of the digital-manual hybrid state of financial operations causing late nights on tedious and manual tasks.
Transitioning to a digital finance organization would streamline the efficiencies into the organizations which will enable the finance team to run smoothly even in times of crisis. Removing the traditional manual and labor-intensive finance operations workplace to run digitally can be a strategic advantage. Leveraging on digital finance processing technology to interact with others and drive the finance business processes, the virtual finance workforce can gather, analyze finance data to generate valuable insights. For example, the utilization of the OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology to manage and process the travel and expenses can automate the generation of expense reports to manage and tighten expense management.
In essence, virtual teams need a coherent shared digital environment if they are to be productive. If team members are drawn from various geographical locations, cultures, or organizations from different digital environments, it becomes imperative for the organization to negotiate and determine within itself what tools its own shared digital environment should contain.
We have identified three key features which can help support virtual teams to thrive in the digital work environment: building a safe environment for freedom of opinions, technological capabilities of employees, and support from management.
• Building a safe environment for freedom of opinions The safe environment for opinions will create a nurturing culture for team members to believe they can speak up freely, without being judged, and that they will be confident in sharing unique ideas and participate in developing creativity at work. If employees can express their thoughts and ideas, an organization could recognize and apply their views to improve, change, and modify the work process, which will enhance the overall work efficiency and help a company to adapt agilely in digital transformation process and journey. Moreover, right, or wrong, new opinions come from those who experience the process themselves to modify their work scheme.
• Technological capabilities of employees The second factor behind the team’s efficiency of remote work is the employee’s technological capabilities. Technology competencies are abilities to apply business tools and platforms and utilize digital communication. We may notice changes from digital transformation, but each employee might have a different level of technological knowledge, causing them to face limitations when managing these technologies. Therefore, enhancing technology skills is essential for transforming the work methods of the organization.
• Support from top management The last and perhaps the most crucial factor in digital work is management’s support. Support from management is necessary to improve flexibility and empower teams to explore and implement distinct work methods, which might be a better procedure, including work processes that may modify the standard working environment of the company.
In conclusion, organizational digital transformation cannot happen without support from the top management. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the traditional way of a workforce operates and there is no looking back. It is imperative for organizations to empower their workforce with the “flexibility” to work from anywhere solidifying a virtual and hybrid workforce, providing real-time collaboration, and minimizing tedious and manual processes. When work happens in the digital world, then our concept of the workplace must follow suit, or we would miss the opportunities to help teams to be as successful as they can be.
The baht opened stronger at 33.09 to the US dollar on Friday from Thursday’s closing of 33.17.
The Thai currency is likely to move between 33.00 and 33.15 during the day, Krungthai Bank market strategist Poon Panichpibool predicted.
He added that the baht is likely to swing sideways owing to the weakening of the dollar near the support level and the strengthening of the baht.
He added that the baht will fluctuate heavily before the US employment data is revealed. In addition, he said, other risk factors such as the Russia-Ukraine situation may put the market at a risk-off state, which will cause the dollar to advance.
The support level for the Thai currency will stand at 33.10 – a level importers are waiting for so they can purchase dollars. Meanwhile, the baht’s resistance level will be from 33.40 – a level eyed by exporters so they can offload their dollars, he added.
Commere Minister Jurin Laksanawisit has said that the world economy and that of neighbouring economies still have opportunities to grow, while the baht’s continued depreciation, as compared to the first half of 2021, will only increase the competitiveness of Thai exports.
He said Thailand can take advantage of the Laos-China train route, and export Thai products via Vientiane to China conveniently.
There are 97 trade checkpoints in border areas, 48 of which have already opened, and 12 more will open this year.
As for the goals of border trade and cross-border trade in 2022, he said after discussions with the private sector, they were aiming for 5-7 per cent growth, with export value in the region of 1.08-1.10 trillion baht.
But there are still two major risk factors: the Covid-19 situation and the Omicron variant, and the political situation in Myanmar, which may affect the number of Thai border exports to Myanmar, especially Myanmar’s foreign currency controls to restrict imports and reduce Myanmar’s foreign trade deficit problem.
In 2021, border trade and cross-border trade were valued at 1.715 trillion baht, an increase of 30.03 per cent, exports were worth 1.031 trillion baht, an increase of 34.60 per cent, and imports were worth 684.015 billion baht, an increase of 23.70 per cent.
The Tourism Council of Thailand (TCT) asked the government on Wednesday for a 200-million-baht fund to set up a so-called “tourism clinic” to improve the skills of service sector staff and create a communal online database of hoteliers and those in the entire tourism sector.
Speaking at a press event, TCT chairman Chamnan Srisawat also asked for general governmental support to help restart a large number of businesses affected by the Covid crisis, as well as a “subsidy” for some 5,000 buses owned by tourism-related transport companies each month to maintain incomes and employment of the drivers and crews.
A lecturer speaking at the event, Phakakrong Theppharak of Rajamangala University of Technology Srivijaya, cited a local tourism market confidence score of 47 on 100 in the final quarter of 2021 as being very low in recent years, though it was higher than that of the third quarter when the outbreak hit Thailand the hardest.
She said the score had been expected to reach 63 in the first quarter of 2022, which is regarded as positive. Precisely 342,024 foreign tourists came to Thailand in the final quarter of 2021, with the entire year seeing 427,869 visitors, generating around 37.73 billion baht in income for the domestic tourism industry. Pre-Covid tourist spending was reported to be Bt80,926 per person per trip.
The last year has seen 6 per cent of tourism businesses shutting down and the hotel occupancy rate plunging to 32 per cent, while the remaining 57 per cent of hotels that did remain operational suffered from no profits.
The baht opened at 33.14 to the US dollar on Thursday, strengthening from Wednesday’s closing rate of 33.23.
The Thai currency is likely to move between 33.10 and 33.25 during the day, Krungthai Bank market strategist Poon Panichpibool predicted.
Poon put the fluctuation down to current market sentiments. He said that if the market is in a risk-on state, then interest in the dollar would fall and the baht would strengthen.
However, there are some risk factors, such as the Russia-Ukraine situation. This might put the market in a risk-off state, which would cause the dollar to advance.
Poon advised investors to wait for the results of key meetings by the European Central Bank and the Bank of England, which might come out with new respective monetary policy directions.
“If they go in for tighter monetary policies or are worried about inflation, the euro and pound might strengthen and cause the dollar to weaken,” he pointed out.
Poon said the baht found support after the gold price rose to its key resistance level.
He expects the Thai currency to swing sideways and not strengthen much because basic economic factors are not yet in positive territory. However, he said, things may improve now that the government has reopened the country.
The support level for the Thai currency will be at 33.10 – a level importers are waiting for so they can purchase dollars. Meanwhile, the baht’s resistance level will be from 33.40 – a level eyed by exporters so they can offload their dollars, he added.
Ajinomoto is a global manufacturer of high-quality food and amino acid-based products, which has been contributing to the food, health and nutrition industries through various applications of amino acid technologies.
Japanese multinational giant Ajinomoto Co Inc will be the official main sponsor of the 31st Southeast Asian Games (SEA Games) to be held in Vietnam in May 2022.
The company said it would support the regional multi-sport event under the “Asean Victory Project” through its six subsidiaries in Southeast Asian countries by mainly providing seasonings and beverages as well as the amino acid-based “amino VITAL” products to athletes competing in the games.
Ajinomoto is a global manufacturer of high-quality food and amino acid-based products, which has been contributing to the food, health and nutrition industries through various applications of amino acid technologies.
Since 2003, Ajinomoto has been working on the “Victory Project” to nourish top-level athletes in Japan and has been conducting nutritional support activities by utilising the power of amino acids, including providing products such as “amino VITAL” and “Winning Meals Kachimeshi” to athletes.
Since 2018, six Ajinomoto Group subsidiaries in the Asean region have implemented the “Asean Victory Project” through sports associations, athletes, and sports schools in their respective countries.
In Thailand, the project was initiated in 2018 when Ajinomoto Thailand started providing amino-based products to the national volleyball association. Following the tremendous success, the company has been expanding nutrition support to other sport associations, including the Badminton Association of Thailand in 2020.
Ajinomoto Group says it aims to become a “solution-providing group of companies for food and health issues” by unlocking the power of amino acids, resolving food and health issues associated with dietary habits and ageing, and contributing to greater wellness for people worldwide.
“Based on the corporate message ‘Eat Well, Live Well’, we have been scientifically exploring the potential of amino acids while creating new value through sustainable and innovative solutions for communities and society. This reflects the essence of our business motto called ‘The Ajinomoto Group Creating Shared Value (ASV)’,” the company said. ASV focuses on value creation in three aspects: creating a healthy society, maximising usage of food resources, and ensuring global sustainability.
SootinClaimon.Com 