The government on Friday (June 19) signed a Bt290-billion contract with BBS Joint Venture for the construction of the U-Tapao International Airport and Eastern Airport City Development Project.
One of five mega-infrastructure projects in the government’s flagship Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) scheme, the U-Tapao airport development in Rayong will link with Bangkok’s Don Mueang and Suvarnabhumi airports via high-speed trains to handle up to 200 million passengers annually.
The contract signing was overseen at Government House by Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha.
The project will create a hub for tourism, logistics and aviation in the EEC, said the government, while the Eastern Aerotropolis between Rayong and Pattaya will revitalise the eastern seaboard, connecting with Bangkok through sea, road, rail and air, and making Thailand an aviation hub and gateway to Asia. U-Tapao would effectively become Bangkok’s third commercial airport, said the government.
The BBS bid offered returns of Bt305.555 billion to the state. The project is also expected to generate more than Bt62 billion in tax revenue and 15,600 jobs per year for the first 5 years.
The project area is situated in Ban Chang district, Rayong province, about 30km from Pattaya and the Map Ta Phut Industrial Estate.
The government will invest Bt20 billion to construct a second runway and control tower to handle up to 70 flights per hour, while BBS will invest Bt270 billion in the construction of the third passenger terminal with annual capacity of 60 million passengers, automated people mover (APM), logistics and cargo complex, free-trade zone and a commercial centre with a capacity of 3 million tonnes per year. Other supporting facilities include Maintenance Repair and Overhaul (MRO), aviation training centre, electricity power plant, tap water production plant, wastewater treatment plant, and aviation fuel services.
Moreover, the project also has the commercial gateway of 400,000 square metres which includes duty free area, shopping arcade, restaurants, hotels as well as Business Park and Airport City covering 1 million square metres of shopping and exhibition centres, and office buildings.
BBS Joint Venture has formed the U-Tapao International Aviation Co Ltd to construct the project, which is divided into four phases.
Phase 1 includes a passenger terminal building of 157,000sqm, commercial area, parking facilities, ground transportation centre, and 60 aircraft stands – scheduled for completion in 2024 to boost annual passenger capacity to 15.9 million.
Phase 2 includes a passenger terminal building of 107,000sqm with Automated People Mover (APM) and automated walkways with 16 additional aircraft stands, to be completed in 2030 and boosting passenger capacity to 30 million.
Phase 3 includes Passenger Terminal 2 of 107,000 sqm with an additional Automated People Mover (APM) and 34 aircraft stands, to be completed in 2042 and boosting capacity to 60 million annual passengers.
Construction of the 3,500-metre second runway is being undertaken by the Royal Thai Navy, with a 2024 completion date.
The U-Tapao International Aviation Co Ltd consists of Bangkok Airways Plc, BTS Group Holdings Plc, and Sino-Thai Engineering and Construction Plc.
By The Washington Post · Reed Albergotti · BUSINESS, COURTSLAW, RACE A group of black YouTube creators filed suit against the company this week, alleging that the platform has been systematically removing their content without explanation.
The suit, filed in federal court in Northern California, outlines alleged discrimination against four creators, who post YouTube videos to earn advertising revenue. YouTube is part of tech giant Google.
The suit is the latest in a series of allegations that YouTube’s software, which can automatically remove videos suspected of violating the company’s policies, discriminates against certain groups, such as LGBT groups. It comes during a national reckoning over racial discrimination in which companies like Google have promised to push for change.
YouTube uses its “absolute, and ‘unfettered’ control over access to approximately 95 percent of all video content that is available to the public,” the lawsuit alleges, to “rig the game, by using their power to restrict and block Plaintiffs and other similarly situated competitors, based on racial identity or viewpoint discrimination for profit.”
YouTube spokesman Farshad Shadloo said the company is reviewing the complaint. “We’ve gone to extraordinary lengths to build our systems and enforce our policies in a neutral, consistent way,” he wrote. He said the company’s automated systems do not discriminate based on race. In the past, YouTube has said that its algorithmic approach to content moderation is protected under the law.
Catherine Jones, creator of the YouTube channel Carmen CaBoom, said the platform removed the channel, alleging nudity. But none of her videos contained nudity, the lawsuit says. Other videos Jones produced were removed because of alleged hate speech, a designation the suit says is untrue.
Nicole Lewis, whose Nicole’s View channel earns $6,000 to $7,000 per year, says 17 videos were removed or archived for unknown reasons, according to the lawsuit. Kimberly Carleste Newman said 700 or more videos from her channel, the True Royal Family, have disappeared, and she doesn’t know why or how to get them back, the lawsuit says. And Lisa Cabrera says her 4,423 videos have generated 20 million views, but 68 of them were removed with no explanation, according to the suit.
On Thursday, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki shot down the allegations during a Washington Post Live event. “It’s not like our systems understand race or any of those different demographics,” she said.
But she said the fairness of machine learning algorithms is a “huge area of work” across the industry. “We always want to make sure that our machines haven’t by accident learned something that isn’t what we intended,” she said. “If we ever find that it did, then we will retrain our machines to make sure that they now have the right, that whatever that issue was has been removed from the training set of our machines.”
YouTube said in response to the suit filed by LGBT YouTube creators last summer that its algorithms don’t discriminate against people for their gender or race. That suit is ongoing.
The suit filed Tuesday cites a sworn declaration by another YouTube creator, Stephanie Frosch, who says YouTube officials told her in 2017 that the company’s content moderation algorithms do discriminate based on race.
Frosch is a plaintiff in the suit filed last summer. In the declaration, Frosch says she was invited to YouTube’s headquarters in September 2017 to discuss alleged discrimination.
After asking Frosch to sign a nondisclosure agreement, YouTube representatives told Frosch that the company’s algorithms categorize creators based on their race, among other characteristics, she wrote. That information is used “when filtering and curating content and restricting access to YouTube services,” she says she was told. “The result is that the algorithm discriminates based on the identity of the creator or its intended audience when making what are supposed to be neutral content based regulations and restrictions for videos that run on YouTube,” company officials told her, according to the declaration.
“Our automated systems are not designed to identify the race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation of our creators or viewers, and our policies are global, enforced by a global team,” said Shadloo, the Google spokesman.
Peter Obstler, an attorney at Browne George Ross, represents Frosch and the black creators who filed suit.
By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Claire Ballentine · BUSINESS, US-GLOBAL-MARKETS
BlackRock is moving forward in fulfilling Larry Fink’s commitment to tackling the climate crisis with a slate of exchange-traded funds.
Four ETFs that track companies using environmental, social and governance criteria started trading Thursday. Among the changes BlackRock’s chief outlined in his January letter was making sustainability integral to portfolio construction and risk management.
Fink pledged to double sustainable ETF offerings, push index providers to expand their environmental, social and governance benchmarks and drop thermal coal producers from BlackRock’s approximately $1.8 trillion in active strategies. Investor interest in value-based and sustainable strategies has surged amid protests against racism and a deadly outbreak that has infected more than 8.3 million people around the world.
“One thing that has emerged as a result of the virus and the lockdown is a renewed appreciation for the environment broadly speaking,” said Emily Roland, co-chief investment strategist at John Hancock Investment Management.
The new suite of BlackRock funds includes: the iShares ESG Aware Conservative Allocation ETF (EAOK); the iShares ESG Aware Moderate Allocation ETF (EAOM); the iShares ESG Aware Growth Allocation ETF (EAOR); and the iShares ESG Aware Aggressive Allocation ETF (EAOA). Each has a 0.18% expense ratio.
BlackRock is also planning to launch four ESG funds that provide exposure to companies with higher scores in that category while also screening for controversial activities such as fossil fuels, palm oil, for-profit prisons and weapons.
“This strong demand across our global wealth and institutional clients is driving more innovation in index and product development and portfolio solutions,” the firm said in a statement.
After taking in a record $4 billion in April, ETFs focused on ESG have seen $52 million in outflows so far this month, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Three BlackRock products — ESGU, ESGE, ESGD — have lured $8.5 billion out of the total $13.1 billion inflows for the category this year.
By Montri Khongkruephan Special to THE NATION The Covid-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on most businesses across the world. Many countries have been implementing extensive mitigation measures to turn their downside scenario to a recovery scenario; they include social distancing, “shelter in place” orders and “lockdown” to reduce growth in the number of Covid-19 infections.
These measures have widely and deeply impacted the businesses both from commercial and operation points of view. Most of the organisations have had to announce either mandatory “work-from-home” policy or a split team working environment to comply with those measures.
CFOs and their team currently play a strategic role in supporting the organisation during this period. From financial accounting and reporting perspectives, there are four key activities that CFOs would need to put more efforts in to support the organisation during the pandemic.
▪︎Risk assessment – Performing risk assessments in potential risk areas that impact businesses and markets in three stages of the pandemic situation — respond, recover and thrive — in order to bring the businesses back to normal as soon as possible. Thus, re-forecasting revenues, costs and investment projects are the outcomes from this key activity.
▪︎Cost Control – All expenditures need to be re-evaluated and realigned with challenging business conditions and risk assessment provided. CFOs need to drive down the costs by eliminating non-essential costs. Furthermore, assessing opportunities to improve resources and spending allocations and processes are also important for the organisation to help their businesses recover once the government lockdown measures are lifted.
▪︎Cash flow management – Optimising and monitoring working capital will enable the business to identify and unlock cash release opportunities. Examining the operational, strategic and financing levers among accounts receivable, accounts payable and inventory can also help improve liquidity. Usually, most companies accelerate their collections and delay payments to suppliers. Considering your company is also a supplier of your customers, they are likely to delay their payment as well. However, business trust is as important as their cash flow.
▪︎Financial reporting – Considering how the management ensures that their teams are doing proper work while staying compliant during the working-from-home period.
In order to perform those four key activities effectively, organisations need to have the right infrastructure in place to be able to provide accurate and timely financial information.
CFOs are currently facing extreme challenges and constraints during this difficult time and it is getting worse due to the lockdown and mandatory work-from-home policy or split-team working arrangements.
The question remains as to why finance teams are unable to work remotely. Prior to the Covid-19 situation, most of the organisations were convinced that they have gone digital with ERP and robotics, and various other digital initiatives in recent years.
However, the current pandemic has revealed that in reality, financial operations still remain hybrid — between digital and manual.
Whilst some processes and data have been automated, the majority is still required to be done manually. Therefore finance teams are not able to operate outside the office as they need to access their desktops and hard documents to process and reconcile information in the office. Such a hybrid state creates five key challenges for financial operation activities with respect to working remotely:
▪︎Limited mobility – Over 40 per cent of organisations have shown that their finance teams cannot work remotely as they need access to the desktops and manual files at the office.
▪︎Labour and time-intensive – Around 61 per cent of organisations still manually do finance work offline eg approving the JV entries, signing documents, finance memos, preparing reconciliation, etc.
▪︎Higher risk of error – Over 50 per cent of CFOs are not completely confident with the accuracy of their financial reporting, which is the first priority of CFOs. This challenge becomes critical during a pandemic if your organisation has been operating in many countries.
▪︎Low morale – Some 42 per cent feel that they put too much efforts on tedious data-gathering, copy and paste function rather than doing the data analysis. Although the organisation can hire low-cost personnel to support such tasks but they are still concerned about staff morale.
▪︎Lack of analytical capabilities – Over 60 per cent find lack of analytical capabilities. The question is: will CFOs invest in training to upskill their team or find a right analytic tool to help them?
Taking into account the above-mentioned challenges, organisations need to accelerate their adoption of automation in Finance “Virtual Finance Operations”. There are four steps for CFOs to consider:
1 Go paperless – Organisations can start considering an end to the use of paper in several processes eg memo approval, document approval, procure-to-pay, and order-to-cash processes, etc. Moreover, utilising e-payments and encouraging suppliers to issue electronic invoices, including establishing a central portal for uploading documents, will be supportive of the paperless processes.
2 Go mobile – Organisations may consider replacing all desktop computers with laptops, including looking into possibilities of processing on-the-go via mobile applications eg approval workflow on your mobile phone.
3 Go automation – Organisations need to accelerate their adoption of automation. The examples are “Optical Character Recognition” and “Natural Language Processing” to automate the data capture of physical documents. Furthermore, leveraging “Robotics Process Automation” technology to automate repetitive, rule-based accounting activities.
4 Go cloud – Moving to cloud-based ERP systems, including implementing a cloud-based solution extension from those ERP related to a financial close and reporting platform, which enables the finance teams to work, manage and monitor the close, consolidation and reporting activities online from anywhere.
In conclusion, finance teams need to put more effort in the four key finance operation activities to support and monitor the organisation in a remote working environment, as CFOs are nowadays facing more challenges from managing their finance team during the lockdown and the mandatory work-from-home policy in many countries due to the pandemic. This could soon be a “new normal” in the business environment.
Most of the challenges are a result of the digital-manual hybrid state of financial operations, which keeps CFOs awake at night.
“Virtual finance operations” will be a sleeping pill for CFOs, which consist of four steps: Go paperless; go mobile; go automation; and go cloud.
Virtual finance operations introduce efficiencies into the organisation and keep the finance team running smoothly even in times of crisis.
Another important matter is that CFOs and controllers should empower their finance teams with the “flexibility” to work from anywhere, real-time collaboration and minimising tedious and manual processes. Rethinking on transforming the current practices of financial operations to virtual finance operations will become a long-term competitive advantage, not only to survive during the pandemic, but also to stand out in the “New Normal” trend for financial operations in the near future.
The author is partner, audit and assurance, Deloitte Thailand
The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) Index closed at 1,370.82 today (June 19), down 2.16 points or 0.16 per cent. Total transaction volume was Bt63.320 billion with an index high of 1,380.02 and a low of 1,368.03.
In the morning session, a stock analyst at Krungsri Securities expected the index to fluctuate between1,365 and 1,380 thanks to a mix of factors, both positive and negative.
“Energy and petroleum stocks gained positive sentiment from the rising crude oil price as Opec+ countries’ moved to cut oil production by 9.7 million barrels per day,” the analyst said.
But the index would be dragged down by uncertainty following a second wave of 28,000 new Covid-19 infections in the US, along with the FTSE All World index’s move to reduce its weight of Thai stocks from 3.05 per cent to 2.98 per cent, worth Bt3.7 billion, added the analyst.
“Meanwhile, profits of commercial banks and non-banking entities may come under pressure after the Bank of Thailand ordered them to cut interest rates they charge for credit cards, personal credit and hire purchase, to help people struggling with debt due to the Covid-19 crisis.”
The analyst advised investors to follow the European Council meeting on raising €750 billion for the €1.1-trillion euro-zone stimulus measures.
The 10 stocks with the highest trade value today were BAM, PTTEP, CPF, KBANK, PTT, MINT, ADVANC, CPALL, KTC, and BBL.
As of 4.30pm, the price of crude oil rose by US$1.29 or 3.32 per cent to $40.13 per barrel, while the gold price rose by $5.70 or 0.33 per cent, to $1,736.80 per ounce.
Changes in other Asian indices were as follows:
Japan’s Nikkei Index closed at 22,478.79, up 123.33 points, or 0.55 per cent.
China’s Shang Hai SE Composite Index closed at 2,967.63, up 28.32 points, or 0.96 per cent, while Shenzhen SE Component Index closed at 11,668.13, up 173.58 points, or 1.51 per cent.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index closed at 24,643.89, up 178.95 points, or 0.73 per cent.
South Korea’s KOSPI Index closed at 2,141.32, up 7.84 points, or 0.37 per cent.
Taiwan’s TAIEX Index closed at 11,549.86, up 1.53 points, or 0.013 per cent.
The price of gold dropped by Bt50 per baht weight in morning trade on Friday (June 19), the Gold Traders Association reported.
As of 9.30am, buying price of a gold bar was Bt25,300 per baht weight and selling price Bt25,400, while gold ornaments were priced at Bt24,847.24 and Bt25,900, respectively.
At close on Thursday (June 18), buying price of a gold bar was Bt25,350 per baht weight and selling price Bt25,450, while gold ornaments were priced at Bt24,892.72 and Bt25,950, respectively.
The Gold Spot Index price on Friday morning moved to around US$1,726 (Bt53,538) per ounce after the price dropped by $4.5 to $1,731.1 per ounce at yesterday’s close due to the strengthening dollar.
Investors continued to buy gold after the US revealed that the number of Americans claiming jobless benefits this week was higher than expected and there was uncertainty about a second wave of Covid-19 cases.
Gold in Hong Kong opened at HK$15,920 (Bt63,717) per tael on Friday morning.
The Stock Exchange of Thailand Index rose by 5.08 points, or 0.37 per cent, to 1,378.06 on Friday morning (June 19).
A stock analyst at Krungsri Securities expected the index to fluctuate between 1,365 and 1,380 from mixed positive and negative factors.
“Energy and petroleum stocks gained positive sentiment from the rising crude oil price as Opec+ countries’ move to cut oil production by 9.7 million barrels per day was 87 per cent completed,” the analyst said.
The analyst said that uncertainty following the second wave of the Covid-19 fallout after the number of new cases in US rose by over 28,000 and FTSE All World’s move to reduce the weight on Thai stocks from 3.05 per cent to 2.98 per cent worth Bt3.7 billion would plunge the index.
“Meanwhile, the profits of commercial banks and non-banking entities may be under pressure after the Bank of Thailand ordered them to cut the interest rates they charge for credit cards, personal credit and hire purchase to help people struggling with debt due to the Covid-19 crisis,” the analyst said.
The analyst advised investors to follow the European Council meeting on raising €750 billion for the €1.1-trillion euro-zone economic stimulus measure from 2021 to 2027.
He recommended the following stocks:
▪ Energy stocks that benefit from the rising crude oil price, such as PTT, PTTEP, TOP, PTTGC, IRPC, SPRC, and IVL.
▪ Stocks whose second-quarter performance will improve, such as CKP, TASCO, STA, and RS.
▪ Marine shipping stocks that benefit from the rising freight rate, such as PSL, TTA, AMA, and PRM.
The SET Index dropped by 3.20 points on Thursday, or 0.23 per cent, closing at 1,373. Total transactions amounted to Bt70 billion.
Net sale by foreign investors amounted to Bt4.463 billion in stocks and Bt2.819 billion in bonds. There were 8,832 net long TFEX SET50 contracts.
By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Sarah Ponczek, Vildana Hajric · BUSINESS, US-GLOBAL-MARKETS
U.S. stocks edged higher after trading in a narrow range for much of Thursday as investors weighed the latest economic data and reports about fresh outbreaks of the novel coronavirus. Treasuries extended their advance.
The benchmark S&P 500 rose 0.06%, led by gains in energy, consumer staple and technology shares. Equities had opened lower in the wake of a report that weekly U.S. jobless claims stayed above 1 million. Meanwhile, Florida’s new cases rose faster than the past week’s average and Texas hospitalizations climbed for a record seventh straight day.
Volume in S&P 500 stocks was 25% lighter than the average during the last 30 days, the first time this year where trading fell at least 15% two sessions in a row. The slide in volume came just ahead of Friday’s quadruple witching, during which options and futures on indexes and equities are scheduled to expire.
“The story has been and remains that with such powerful cross-currents facing the market we are going to have periods of positivity and even exuberance, and we’re going to have moments of disappointment,” said Lauren Goodwin, economist and multi-asset portfolio strategist at New York Life Investments. “It’s just endemic of the economic, political, earnings, health, everything environment just being so uncertain.”
Elsewhere, the Stoxx Europe 600 declined. The pound held onto losses and gilt yields rose after the Bank of England expanded its quantitative easing program.
The picture for global markets remains complex as investors mull reports on China battling its worst outbreak since Wuhan, and Israel pausing further reopening of the economy after a rise in cases. That’s competing with some positive news on the economic front, as well as a flood of promised stimulus measures.
Crude oil prices gained after erasing earlier losses.
“The markets are fragile right now and I think a lot of investors see how quick the markets have recovered – equity market in particular,” said Chris Gaffney, president of world markets at TIAA Bank. “Everyone is starting to feel that maybe we’re ahead of ourselves.”
These are some of the main moves in markets:
– – –
Stocks
– The S&P 500 Index increased 0.1%, to 3,115.34, at closing.
– The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.2%, to 26,080.10.
– The Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 0.3%, to 9,943.05, hitting the highest in more than a week with its fifth consecutive advance.
– The MSCI All-Country World Index declined 0.1%, to 527.51, the first retreat in a week.
Currencies
– The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index advanced, 0.5% to 1,220.54, the highest in almost three weeks on the largest gain in a week.
– The euro declined 0.4% to $1.1204, the weakest in more than two weeks.
– The Japanese yen was little changed at 106.98 per dollar, the strongest in a week.
– The British pound fell 1.1%, to $1.242, the weakest in almost three weeks on the biggest fall in a week.
Bonds
– The yield on two-year Treasuries dipped less than one basis point, to 0.19%.
– The yield on 10-year Treasuries fell four basis points, to 0.70%, the lowest in a week on the biggest fall in a week.
– Germany’s 10-year yield declined two basis points, to -0.41%.
– Britain’s 10-year yield jumped four basis points to 0.228%, the highest in more than a week on the biggest surge in almost two weeks.
Commodities
– West Texas Intermediate crude gained 2.3%, to $38.85 a barrel, the highest in more than a week.
– Gold depreciated 0.1%, to $1,724.87 an ounce, the weakest in more than a week.
The government will on Friday (June 19) sign a contract worth Bt290 billion with U-Tapao International Aviation Company for the development of U-Tapao Airport and Eastern Aviation City.
The move comes after the Cabinet endorsed the results of bidding for the project, won on June 2 by BBS Joint Venture Group. BBS has established the U-Tapao International Aviation Company Co Ltd to carry out the development.
The airport development scheme is one of five mega-projects in the government’s flagship Eastern Economic Corridor infrastructure plan.
The EEC Office (EECO) will sign the joint investment agreement in a ceremony overseen by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha at Government House.
U-Tapao International Aviation Company Co Ltd has registered capital of Bt4.5 billion and is a joint venture between Bangkok Airways, which holds 45 per cent of the shares, BTS Group Holdings Limited (35 per cent) and Sino-Thai Engineering and Construction Plc (STEC) 20 per cent. Narita International Airport Corporation has been contracted to manage U-Tapao Airport.
After signing the contract, U-Tapao International Aviation Company Co Ltd must prepare a master plan of investment in the project within 60 days, then begin construction. U-Tapao International Aviation Company Co Ltd will invest in all four phases. The first phase for construction will take three years, with operations due to start in the fourth year.
Phase 1 will see construction of a third passenger terminal at U-Tapao airport with annual capacity of 15 million passengers, exceeding the 12 million specified in the contract’s terms of reference. It includes a Bt40-million rail connection system to be managed by Narita Airport Corp. Phase 2 will develop the APM electric train system to link the project as yearly passenger capacity grows to 30 million. Phase 3 will expand capacity to 45 million passengers, with a capacity of 60 million reached in phase 4.
The Mass Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand (MRTA) will call bids for the extension of two mass transit systems within this year, the MRTA governor Pakapong Sirikantaramas said.
Bids will be sought for the western extension of the Orange Line, stretching from Bang Khun Non to Thailand Cultural Centre and the southern extension of the Purple Line from Tao Pun to Rat Burana.
The terms of reference for the MRT Orange Line should be completed within July and it should be ready for bids in October. The whole bidding process for the Orange Line extension should be completed before the end of this year.
The Orange Line will be developed under a public-private joint venture basis. The construction will cost Bt110 billion, Bt14 billion of which will be spent on land expropriation, Bt96 billion on civil work and Bt32 billion will be spent on the service operation for 30 years.
The MRTA expects to call bids for the MRT Purple Line in September. Of the Bt100 billion total development cost, Bt80 billion will be spent on civil works, Bt16 billion on land reclamation and the remainder on mechanical and electrical work. Like the Orange Line, this route will also be jointly invested in by public and private sectors.
The MRTA will hire a consultant to draw up documents for a public-private partnership for the Brown Line, for which bids are expected to be called next year.
(Photo credit: Royal Thai Government)
Montri Khongkruephan
