The company’s chief executive officer, Pawat Vitoorapakorn, also blamed the strengthening baht for the revision.

Of its total revenue, 69 per cent comes from the international markets.

The company, however, is confident of posting a higher net profit, thanks to a significant decrease in raw material cost and a more efficient production process.

The company has also suspended its merger and acquisition plans due to the volatile global economy, he added.

EPG operates as a holding company, investing in the polymer and plastic conversion business.

According to its operating results for the seconf quarter of fiscal 2019-20 (July 1 to September 30), the company’s net profit rose 24.5 per cent year on year, from Bt262.1 million in Q2 2018-19 to Bt326.3 million

The world’s most-traded cryptocurrency declined as much as 11% to $6,798, before trimming losses. Alternative coins such as Ether and Litecoin also slumped. For the first time since April, Bitcoin fell below its 200-day moving average without bouncing back, a signal that traders see the breach as a sign of weakness rather than an opportunity to buy.

Feeding the anxiety were lingering concerns about the status of exchanges such as Binance Holdings Ltd. in China after officials there formally announced a crackdown on crypto-related businesses. Binance has denied reports of a police raid of offices in Shanghai, saying it doesn’t have formal operations there as of now.

“There’s been a general apathy in the market, and low sentiment,” said Mati Greenspan, the ex-senior market analyst at eToro in Tel Aviv. “There was excitement when Xi Jinping said China needed to embrace blockchain, but it has faded and the market is returning to levels before” the Chinese president’s comments in late October, he said.

Technicals have a big role in powering trades for virtual tokens because they lack the kind of fundamentals that can be analyzed with traditional securities. Many investors say the tokens have little intrinsic value beyond the anonymity some seek for illegal financial transactions.

“Crypto traders get awfully superstitious about technical indicators, like momentum,” said Greenspan, who set up his own research outfit this week. The relative-strength index, which measures the velocity of a security’s price movement, is a technical signal of momentum.

Rumors also persist that firms who mint new Bitcoins, known as miners, have been selling into the downdraft, Greenspan and others said.

Bitcoin was 3.6% lower at $7,328 as of 3:20 p.m. in New York. It’s down 13% this week.

The event is the latest sign of a growing rift between management and rank-and-file workers at Alphabet Inc.’s Google, which was once praised for its open corporate culture. Protesting staff believe the company is trying to quell internal activism and quash dissension about Google’s work with the military and other potentially controversial customers.

Roughly 200 workers gathered about 11 a.m. local time Friday outside a Google office overlooking San Francisco bay.

“Over the past two years, many of my coworkers have asked the company to take meaningful action to curtail sexual harassment and systemic racism, improve the working conditions of temps, vendors and contractors, and divest from harmful tech,” said Zora Tung, a Google software engineer. “Instead of listening to us, the company has chosen to silence us.”

The Google workers who protested also said the company had unjustly put Laurence Berland and Rebecca Rivers on indefinite administrative leave without warning. They demanded that Google bring the employees back to work immediately.

Earlier this month, Bloomberg News reported that Google had put two workers on leave, which a spokeswoman said was for allegedly violating company policies. In an email, the Google protesters said neither Berland nor Rivers was given an explanation for their punishment. Rivers was involved in internal protests against U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which is currently testing a Google cloud product. Berland was active in protests against YouTube for its handling of hate speech policies.

“It’s a brute force intimidation attempt to silence workers,” the employees said in an email.

Rivers said that Google’s official reason for putting her on leave was to investigate her document access at the company to ensure “everything’s on the up and up.”

“However, many of the questions during this interrogation focused on my involvement in the Customs and Border Protection petition and social media usage,” Rivers said. “I helped my coworkers learn about and act on Google’s collaboration with CBP. Many of my coworkers are immigrants and this directly affects their lives and communities.”

Berland said Google punished him for his involvement in protests against YouTube and for demanding, with other colleagues, that Google not work with the CBP.

“Even though Rebecca and I are experiencing the full force of Google’s retaliation, this is not really about me. It’s not about Rebecca. It’s about us, all of us, and the open culture we built and treasure together,” Berland said. “If they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone, and that culture is lost forever.”

A company spokeswoman said Google is investigating the access of confidential documents and other information that made some employees feel unsafe.

“We have clear guidelines about appropriate conduct at work, and we’ve had a number of concerns raised,” the spokeswoman said. “We always investigate such issues thoroughly.”

In the last 18 months or so, a divide has grown between Google’s leaders and outspoken staff. Employees have protested leadership’s handling of sexual harassment complaints and launched internal campaigns against some Google projects, such as a censored search engine for China, a military contract and Google’s cloud deals with energy companies. These areas were seen as potential sources of revenue growth for Google.

More recently, some workers accused managers of attempting to censor internal discussions and shut down meetings about labor rights. At least some of the tensions stem from new community guidelines Google introduced in August that were intended to curb incivility in the workplace.

Last week, Google scrapped its weekly all-hands staff meeting in favor of a monthly gathering that will focus on business and strategy topics.

They will replace Kittinut Tikawan and Siripoj Kunakornphan, who have been appointed as True Corporation’s members of the executive committee to drive the company’s strategies, according to a statement on Friday.

Prior to the current appointment, Anat was senior group managing director, regional management. At the new post, he is in charge of all nationwide management and commercial operations including content and media business, enterprise customer segment and other supporting functions.

He has been with True Group for more than 25 years. Previously he was group managing director, regional management. He was responsible for regional management and operations in BMA and southern provinces.

His areas of expertise are commercial and operations especially in targeted and localised marketing campaigns. He also once served as managing director of TrueVisions Group in commercialising and driving TrueVisions’ content management.

Prior to his current position, Sarit was chief operations officer and chief regulatory officer. At his new post, he is responsible for managing networks, information technology, customer service management, and other supporting operations.

He joined True Group more than 28 years ago and played an important role in network infrastructure engineering and operations including various strategic projects for True Group.

Fagerman assumed the post on August 1 amid a challenging economic environment and fierce competition in the domestic market.

However, she is convinced that in times like this, it is even more important to invest in reliable, high-quality solutions, in order to minimise the risk of unplanned downtime and cost. The need of going for more sustainable solutions has also never been greater.

“At Scania, we want to drive the shift to sustainable transport solutions in the industry. It is our vision,” said Fagerman.

“We all know the economic outlook of Thailand is on a slight decline, but Scania still has a firm belief in the Thai market for its strong potential and Scania has great potential to grow in the market. In February 2019, our investment in a new factory in Bangkok sent a strong signal to the market. We will make Thailand one of our important hubs for Scania in Asia.”

As the first female at Scania Siam to assume this position, Fagerman proudly states that the number of female managers at Scania Siam is around 40 per cent , which is higher than in most markets.

Scania believes in equal opportunity and diversity. Having a balanced gender mix in the work environment helps strengthening teamwork, resolving problems and drive business growth.

Scania has been the market leader for European truck brands in the past two years in the Thai market.

“We aim much higher than that. Scania wants to meet as many customers as possible and make sure that they get the possibility to try out our great trucks and how we can meet their needs. Our sale representatives recognise that every business operation has different requirements and we can help achieving best profitability and up-time while shifting their operations to lasting sustainability,” she added.

She said that going forward next year, the company has a lot of activities planned, such as mini road-shows to allow customers to explore its best products and experience the comfort and performance from test-drives.

Scania will also expand dealer network and service portfolio to offer more choices to customers, she said.

Fagerman began her career at the Sales and Marketing department at Scania’s headquarter 12 years ago. For the last seven years she was managing the Sales department at Scania Switzerland and she succeeded in placing Scania as the market leader for the first time.

Scania is part of Volkswagen Truck & Bus GmbH and one of the world’s leading manufacturers of trucks and buses for heavy transport applications.

In Thailand, Scania first started with trucks in 1986 via Forefront (Thailand) Co Ltd, an importer. In 2000, Scania Siam Co Ltd was established as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Scania Sweden.

Confidence in the company’s financial strength and credible business expansion plan has consistently led to strong demand from investors which the company decided to accommodate by exercising the Greenshoe option.

Preeyanart Soontornwata, BGrim’s president, said that the major reason for such great feedback from investors, apart from the perps’ attractive interest rate, is the investors’ confidence in BGRIM’s financial strength and business expansion plans, on which the company has always delivered.

BGrim is one of the core businesses under B Grimm Group, which has been established in Thailand for over 140 years, and has been a pioneer for investment in many infrastructure projects. It was also among the first private power producers in the country and has operated in the power business for more than two decades.

As of now, approximately 75 per cent of BGrim’s power capacity comes from its power plants in Thailand, and 25 per cent from overseas. The company has strategic plans in order to boost its power capacity to 5,000 megawatts by 2022.

BGrim currently has 56 power plant projects, some of which are in the construction and development stage which will have a total capacity of 3,245 megawatts and will be fully operational by 2025.

Most recently, the company signed an agreement with Petro Vietnam Power to jointly develop a 3,000-megawatt LNG power plant and an import-and-distribution project for the LNG to be used as energy for power plants in Vietnam.

The LNG power plant is divided into the existing 1,500-megawatt facility, located in Ca Mau province and operated by Petro Vietnam Power since 2014, and the new second-phase investment in a 1,500-megawatt power plant. The second plant will also be in the same area.

“We are looking to expand our investments in potential markets overseas, especially in countries where there is potential demand for electricity including Vietnam, Cambodia and other Asian countries. This opportunity will contribute to future revenues and will be the significant driver for the company’s power capacity to reach 5,000 megawatts by 2022 as targeted,” Preeyanart said.

The “Drive Spirit” event will also see the platforms painted orange and decorated with 200-metre banners.

“The objective is to show that the bank’s services are in line with today’s consumer lifestyles, build brand awareness and reaffirm our commitment to the ‘Drive-Your-Progress’ mission,” said Pompet Rasanon, executive vice president of sales network, automotive lending.

“TBank stands ready to help customers achieve every target in all areas. It is confident it can help everyone reach their goals. If life is a journey, each individual will have a different finish line in their dream. It might be family happiness, self-actualisation or a business that helps a lot of people,” he said.

“ThanachartDrive believes a vehicle is not just a thing used for transporting people from one place to another, but it also represents the progress achieved on the journey. We chose the word ‘Drive’ since, apart from meaning ‘going in a particular direction’, it means ‘a motivation that prompts us to achieve desired results’.

“We want to send consumers a message that the Drive Spirit represents our determination to help all customer groups reach their targets. Regardless of whether the ones who see and are aware of the event are planning to purchase a car or are already TBank customers or would like to expand business by using the cars they are driving as capital for the expansion, we’re prepared to help them get the best experience possible from using a comprehensive range of loans.”

ThanachartDrive makes available products and services that meet all types of needs. These include New Car Hire Purchase, Used Car Hire Purchase and Cash Your Car.

The strengths lie in ThanachartDrive Privileges for car hire-purchase customers, the Web-based Bluebook of information about median prices for used cars, and the Academy established for training sales teams.

The objective of the academy is to produce strong sales teams that can help customers reach their targets. Training courses are also available for enhancing competitiveness among TBank’s trading partners.

TBank further has a digital platform as well as an Automotive Lending Digital Experience system to ensure customer convenience from the beginning to the end, including the loan application, approval-status monitoring, account detail checking and easy submission of supporting documents.

The two have created a joint venture — Kasikorn Line Company.

KBank  holds a 50 per cent stake in the joint venture through its subsidiary Kasikorn Vision, while Line Corporation via Line Financial Asia  holds the other half. The joint venture has a registered capital of Bt2.2 billion.

Newly appointed Kasikorn Line CEO Tana Pothikamjorn said the company will launch financial services in the middle of next year, targeting a million customers.

Thais are big fans of Line social chat application with 44 million users out of the 70 million population.

“Line is an easy channel for chat that everyone can access while Kasikornbank wants to reach wider customers,” he told a press conference on Wednesday (November 21).

Currently KBank has a 16.9 million customer base.

Line BK aims to leverage on the robust banking experience of KBank combined with the 44 million user scale and social reach of Line to provide innovative financial services on the Line platform.

Line BK plans to offer a full range of financial services covering transactions, lending, insurance and investments. The focus is to provide a consumer-friendly service on the channel of their choices and better manage risk through advanced analytics to reach out to more consumers. Customers will be able to transact seamlessly and access credit easily using the messaging app, he said.

He said the cost of providing financial services will be much lower than that of banks operating physical branches.

He said ‘Line BK’ will use rich data about consumer behaviour as a tool for lending while ensuring the privacy of individuals.

The company said the partnership is part of the Line Bank initiative by Line, which is launching financial services in Japan, Chinese Taipei and Indonesia.

Tana has led digital banking at Siam Commercial Bank for seven years. In 2018, Tana received “Digital Banker of the Year” award from The Asset. Prior to returning to Thailand, Tana had extensive experience working for leading technology firms in Silicon Valley, according to the company 0press release.

Those are the findings of the Salary Survey 2020 undertaken by Robert Walters, a global recruitment specialist group.

The survey focused on Southeast Asia and was released on Wednesday (November 20).

The Thai business climate and economy are robust, it found, with the digital revolution honing in on the country’s mobile-first focus to drive growth and expansion.

With the Eastern Seaboard acting as a magnet for foreign investment and more export activities, Thailand’s recruitment status enters 2020 in a positive way.

The key issue is likely to be that demand for talent outweighs supply, putting pressure on hiring managers to meet employee expectations.

Punyanuch Sirisawadwattana, Robert Walters Thailand country manager, points out how employers need to be competitive to capture the best talent.

“It’s absolutely vital that company directors understand the details and implications of the Salary Survey,” she said. “What employee expectations are, what factors lead to them switching jobs and what elements are important within a role are key to not only recruiting the right talent but also maintaining a sustainable workforce.”

Key takeaways from the Salary Survey:

• Accounting & Finance: Stakeholder management and SAP/system implementation skills are in demand, while 49 per cent of professionals staying in their roles can expect an annual salary increment of between 7-15 per cent.

Those changing jobs can expect an average of 15-25 per cent. At present, 21 per cent of those hired in this field stay in a role for less than two years.

• Banking & Financial Services: Foreign investment relationship managers, private bankers and risk & compliance experts are in demand, with 30 per cent of professionals in this sector staying in a role for less than two years. Expectations from candidates changing jobs is, on average, to receive salary increments of between 20-25 per cent.

• Engineering & Manufacturing: Top jobs in demand include managerial roles in quality control, project engineering and continuous/process improvement. With a quest for better compensation and benefits the biggest motivator for moving jobs, and an average expectation of salary increments of between 15-30 per cent on changing jobs.

• Human Resources: Of the top four motivators to move jobs, the most popular reason, at 36 per cent, was career progression, while skills in demand include business partnerships, a strategic mindset and logical as well as critical thinking.

• Legal: A good command of English, a commercial mindset and well-rounded expertise are the top skills in demand, with 61 per cent listing better compensation and benefits as the top motivator for moving jobs. Meanwhile, salary expectations to stay in a role for 56 per cent are a 7-15 per cent salary increment, with 27 per cent expecting a 15+ per cent rise.

• Sales & Marketing: High turnover is revealed with 36 per cent of professionals staying less than two years in a role, with career progression listed as a top motivator for switching jobs for 34 per cent. Expectations of salary increases for those moving jobs is between 15-30 per cent, with regional sales, key account and digital marketing managers in demand.

• Supply Chain & Procurement: Some 62 per cent staying in their current roles expect an annual salary increment of between 7-15 per cent, with career progression (29 per cent) the main reason for changing jobs followed by 20 per cent seeking better compensation and benefits as well as opportunities to work internationally. Procurement/purchasing, demand/supply planning and logistics managerial skills are in demand.

• Tech & Transformation: Career progression as well as better compensation and benefits (27 per cent) were joint top reasons for moving jobs, while 10 per cent listed seeking better company culture as a reason. With 32 per cent of professionals staying less than two years in a role, the top jobs in demand are full stack/mobile developers, data scientists and UI/UX engineers.

For the overall picture, the survey points out that the momentum of ever-increasing digitalisation is set to continue to be a major trend across the region, with demand for tech-savvy professionals increasing, including managers with hybrid skills.

Meanwhile, so-called “glocal” talent with an understanding of global references as well as local know-how is becoming more prescient as economies rise and businesses become more internationalised.

With change and digital evolution comes regulatory shifts too, with a greater need for key risk and compliance experts.

At the same time, with 2019 showing growth in manufacturing regionally, opportunities across many sectors are opening out to would-be employees from supply chain, procurement and logistics to engineering, finance and human resources.

In Thailand, this upswing is being boosted by many factors, including the development of the Eastern Economic Corridor.

A definite trend that will gain traction in 2020 and beyond is employers adopting a wider perspective regarding applicants; hiring potential and embracing transferable skills rather than fixating solely on direct experience.

The 6.1-magnitude earthquake that struck at 4.03am, followed by repeated aftershocks, had its epicentre in Hongsa district of Xayaboury province.

A damage-prevention system at the plant was automatically triggered and power generation temporarily halted.

The coal-fired power plant has total installed capacity of 1,878 megawatts.

An initial investigation by Hongsa Power Company Limited found no one injured and no significant damage. The main structure was not affected.

The company – a joint venture of RH International (Singapore) Corp, an indirect subsidiary of Ratch; Banpu Power; and Lao Holding State Enterprise – continues to closely monitor the situation, Ratch said.