The commission, which he chaired, will propose the resolution to the Cabinet for consideration tomorrow.

When asked if the plan will proceed under the bankruptcy law, Prayut said the bankruptcy and the rehabilitation plan are not the same thing and the Cabinet will reveal more details later.

PTT needs to raise funds for debt refinancing, increasing liquidity and raising working capital, she said

Debentures worth Bt 27 billion will reach maturity over the next two years — Bt1 billion this month, Bt1 billion more in July, Bt22 billion in September and about Bt15 billion more next year, she said.

Due to the Covid-19 fallout, some of PTT’s debtors, like airlines and those in the gas industry, have delayed their debt payments, she said. However, the delay in payments by clients has not adversely affected PTT’s cash flow, she reassured.

The company currently holds Bt50 billion cash despite its reported net loss of Bt1.6 billion in the first quarter. The losses stem from oil stock loss (cost of oil stockpile) , foreign currency borrowings and weakening of the baht.

PTT Group has losses from oil stock if Bt70 billion from business operations in the first quarter worth Bt17 billion.

The company is optimistic about the outlook for the rest of the year; refinery margins are likely to rise with crude oil price estimated at between $30 to $40 per barrel. The group’s chemical products, however, are under pressure as new suppliers from China have entered the market.

The deal to acquire a 1.3% stake values Jio Platforms at an enterprise value of 5.16 trillion rupees ($68 billion), the company said. The transaction takes the total investment raised by Jio to 671.9 billion rupees after it sold stakes to Facebook, Silver Lake and Vista Equity Partners.

Investors are betting on Jio’s access to India’s huge consumer market, and its potential to shake up traditional industries in the country — from retail to education and payments — with its technology. India is the only major open Internet market where foreign technology giants such as Amazon.com Inc., Walmart Inc. and Google’s parent Alphabet Inc. can compete for market share.

“General Atlantic’s endorsement and partnership energizes Jio’s young team to set, and achieve, even more ambitious goals,” said Akash Ambani, director of Reliance Jio, and Chairman Mukesh Ambani’s son. “Jio is committed to make a digitally inclusive India that will provide immense opportunities to every Indian citizen especially to our highly talented youth.”

Jio Platforms, a wholly owned unit of Reliance Industries, brings together Jio’s digital apps, ecosystems and the wireless platform offered by telecommunications carrier, Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd., under one umbrella, according to the Mumbai-based company.

Saudi Arabia’s $320 billion sovereign wealth fund is also considering purchasing a minority stake in Jio, Bloomberg News reported on May 9.

There were rumours that Thai Airways would file for bankruptcy in court on May 15.

THAI’s recovery plan has been approved by the airline’s committee on May 17 and the State Enterprise Policy Office will supervise it.

The plan is soon to be presented to the Cabinet to give more clear directions on the future of Thai Airways.

Lacia Sherlock, retail manager for Ikea stores in Thailand and the Philippines, said, “As the Covid-19 situation in Thailand is steadily improving, we would like to especially thank the frontline medical teams who have been providing crucial assistance, as well as all Thais for their collective support.

“We are pleased to welcome customers back to our stores and committed to ensuring their safety and well-being together with protecting our co-workers. We are doing our part by making sure that all of the necessary preventive safety, health and hygiene measures are in place in our stores, ensuring that everyone is safe when working and shopping. Our co-workers and customers alike are required to wear masks at all times in stores. All of our restaurants are open for dine-in service, and we will continue with takeaway orders and our new food delivery services.”

Sherlock said that during the store closures, “we introduced new services and ways to improve our customers’ shopping experience. We have introduced remote planning and purchasing with safe social distancing for storage units, PAX wardrobes and Ikea kitchens, and even safe contactless click and collect, delivery, and assembly services”.

The new sensors are akin to tiny self-contained computers, incorporating a logic processor and memory. They are capable of image recognition without generating any images, allowing them to do AI tasks like identifying, analyzing or counting objects without offloading any information to a separate chip. Sony said the method provides increased privacy while also making it possible to do near-instant analysis and object tracking.

Sony joins tech giants like Huawei Technologies and Google that have been building dedicated AI silicon to help accelerate everything from image processing to machine learning. Its latest semiconductors could offer a big boost to augmented reality applications, should the technology be adapted for the smartphone or consumer markets, where the Japanese company is a leader.

The new AI-augmented sensors are capable of capturing a regular 12-megapixel image, 4K video at up to 60 frames per second or neither, providing only metadata about what the sensor has seen. Among the applications suggested by Sony are the counting and tracking of visitors to public spaces, heat and congestion mapping and measuring shopper behavior in retail locations.

Though intended for commercial customers in its present iteration, the technology has promise for consumer applications as well. Without generating any actual images, it can help a personal device such as a smartphone identify objects and users securely. The accelerated object detection would also be an advantage for maintaining sharp focus when filming fast-moving subjects such as sports players or pets.

Sony is the world leader in providing image sensors for smartphones such as Apple Inc.’s iPhone and dedicated photo and video cameras from the likes of Nikon Corp. Its sensor division has been its most reliable growth driver over the past few years, boosted by the proliferation of multi-camera phones. The new products are in line with the company’s long-term goal, as articulated by Chief Executive Officer Kenichiro Yoshida, of expanding the variety of sensing solutions it offers and pursuing more forms of recurring revenue.

Sony said it has already shipped samples of its new sensors to potential customers, who are mostly in the business-to-business segment, including factory automation.

THG’s revenue for Q1 rose to Bt1.94 billion, up 3.6 per cent from Bt1.872 billion in the same period last year.

THG vice chairman Tanatip Suppradit said the company had been able to maintain its performance despite the impact of the Covid-19 outbreak on the economy and international travel.

“Performance from January to February was satisfactory, but the performance in March dropped due to the Covid-19 outbreak,” he said.

He said factors boosting the company’s performance were an increase in revenue from new health centres at Thonburi Bamrungmuang Hospital and the opening of Thonburi Thungsong Hospital in Nakhon Si Thammarat.

“Revenue from other hospitals, such as Thonburi and Thonburi 2, was similar to the same period last year, while the net profit in this quarter reflected extra profit from investment in the Welly Hospital joint venture in China,” he said.

He expected the number of patients using services at hospitals to increase after the Covid-19 outbreak is resolved.

“The government’s move to ease lockdown measures will trigger positive economic sentiment and confidence among people, which will be reflected by increasing demand for our services in May,” he said.

He added that THG-operated hospitals have implemented Covid-19 preventive measures, including isolating patients with respiratory symptoms, sanitising equipment and surfaces, and banning reusable parking cards.

CPF, a leading agro-industrial and food conglomerate that operates in 17 countries and exports to more than 30 countries under its “Kitchen of the World” vision, reaped Bt138 billion in sales revenue in the first quarter, up by 10 per cent from the same period last year. Sales revenue from its overseas business in 16 countries, which accounted for 68 per cent of total revenue, rose by 12 per cent year on year, while operations in Thailand which constituted 32 per cent of total revenue witnessed a 6 per cent growth.

Prasit Boondoungprasert, chief executive officer of CPF, said the increase in net profit was because last year’s ASF outbreak had led to a significant drop in pork supplies and pushed up the average price of the commodity in Vietnam and Cambodia.

Also, in the first quarter, many of CPF’s businesses met expansion targets, and the company started realising revenue from Hylife Co Ltd, a pork business operator in Canada.

Prasit said that though the Covid-19 pandemic has led to an economic slowdown and drop in people’s purchasing power, CPF’s businesses have only suffered a mild impact as its products are essential for daily life.

He said safety measures have been strictly employed to cope with the outbreak, while employees have been assured of the best care.

CPF is also doing its bit to help by supplying food to 200 public hospitals under the Public Health Ministry, to the families of 20,000 medical personnel and to the 20,000 overseas returnees. The company also recently issued more than 1 million discount coupons to medical volunteers to ease their cost of living, while delivering 25 batches of food to slums in the Greater Bangkok and provinces in cooperation with the Agriculture Ministry.

CPF’s business plan has been reviewed in response to the Covid-19 outbreak to offer better marketing channels under the “new normal”, and expects the results for this year to exceed those of last year.

The company recognised foreign exchange losses of Bt623.03 million due to the Australian dollar weakening against the US dollar.

However, excluding the foreign exchange loss, the company’s profit in the first quarter of the year will be Bt1.983 billion, up Bt280.62 million, or 16.5 per cent, from the same period of the previous year of Bt1.703.23 billion

The company’s revenue from sales and service in the first quarter of this year was Bt2.207 billion, up Bt149 million or 7.2 per cent from the same period of the previous year of Bt2.058 billion.

The increase in revenue was due to subsidiary Hongsa Power, whose profit increased by 40 per cent, and the acquisition of Ratch Cogeneration on October 1 last year.

In his speech, Auttapol told the employees that PTT was facing challenges from the impact of the Covid-19 outbreak, which has severely affected most economies, including that of Thailand.

PTT is also experiencing an additional impact from the drop in global oil price, though the CEO believes the situation will improve in the second half.

He added that PTT has drawn up a plan to steer the organisation through this crisis by focusing on boosting its resilience and reform, as well as cutting down on unnecessary expenses and prioritising investment.

PTT will also continue to seek more business partners, both local and foreign, to build a new business model and new business ecosystem.

As per its filing to the Stock Exchange of Thailand on May 11, PTT and its subsidiaries reported earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) in the first quarter at Bt32.385 billion, marking a drop of 51.6 per cent from the last quarter of 2019.

This resulted mainly from the lower performance of petrochemical and refining businesses due to stock losses incurred in the first quarter from the sharp drop in crude oil price from US$67.3 per barrel at the end of the last quarter of last year to $23.4 per barrel in the first quarter of this year.