SCB Abacus yesterday said the partnership marked another step forward in developing an end-to-end digital lending platform that offers SMEs a faster and easier access to sources of finance to ensure liquidity, business expansion that keeps up with growing consumer demands and competitiveness in the current market.

Wongnai is a website and application recognised as a restaurant and lifestyle e-platform with among the most extensive databases. Featuring a number of restaurants, beauty services, spas, food recipes, hotels and tourist attractions, Wongnai is a pioneering leader of user review sites in Thailand with more than 8 million users per month, and a database of over 230,000 businesses nationwide. The data on Wongnai is constantly updated with accounts from customers to help over 3 million users across the country to make informed decisions.

 The digital lending service Mae Manee Sri Online will soon be available for businesses that operate with Wongnai, so that they can enhance their competitive edge at any time, she said.

The retailer will also adopt a collaborative approach to launch several other initiatives on the occasion of World Environment Day 2019 on June 5, to tackle Thailand’s waste crisis stemming from improper management of single-use packaging and food containers, Tesco Lotus corporate affairs director, Salinla Seehaphan, said.

Sharad Mehrotra, chief executive of Telenor Myanmar, said at a briefing on Wednesday that Myanmar has more than enough capacity with the telco’s modern 4G network, and that Telenor always tries to bring the latest technology to the country.

 “When the technology is mature and fully tested, we will look at business opportunities for 5G in Myanmar,” he said.

“As a company in Telenor Group having already initiated pilots in countries like Norway, Denmark and Malaysia, we have access to the latest knowledge and experience from 5G.”

Mehrotra said the firm’s network is technically advanced and ready for the future. In 2018, the firm showcased its capacity for 1Gbps of data transfer. This year, it has been running several internet of things pilots.

“With the widest network in Myanmar and high availability, we provide the best data experience for streaming and gaming,” he said.

“Our networks will be widely available. We have focused resources on the intelligent management of our network.”

Mehrotra said the firm has also invested in solar power and better batteries to prepare for grid outages and longer running sites.

“When incidents occur, our teams are ready to be deployed to ensure that services are restored with minimal inconvenience for our users,” he said.

He takes pride in playing a critical role in bringing real 4G speeds to the mass market in Myanmar.

“We have more towers than any other operator, providing 4GLTE to 308 townships and mobile connectivity to more than 92 per cent of Myanmar’s population,” he said.

This year, the firm has continued to roll out new sites to further expand its 4G footprint and to improve new services and innovations.

“One example of our long-term commitment is 4GLeo. In the past year, he has covered more than 25,000 kilometres in his car to measure our signal strength where people live,” said Mehrotra, referring to the company’s network ambassador.

“We go beyond placing one tower in each township to claim a broad network. With high-tech measuring equipment, we patrol the streets and alleys where people live.”

The firm does not hesitate to send a team for immediate improvement if the network quality is not satisfactory, he said.

“It is a key priority to develop our network to ensure our customers have the best possible experience when using their mobile phones, and today we connect our customers to what matters most,” he said.

Mehrotra said Myanmar’s telecom infrastructure has come a long way in the past three years, after having one of the worst networks in Asia.

“With the fast development and rapid upgrades, Myanmar has moved to the status of a leading market when it comes to network quality,” he said.

“International testing shows that Myanmar people now enjoy some of Asean’s fastest data speeds and Yangon is among the top cities in Asia when it comes to network quality.”

Iconsiam was named the Best Store Design of the Year 2019 by the World Retail Congress in a ceremony held at the National Maritime Museum in Amsterdam.

Prestige said, initiated in 2007, the World Retail Hall of Fame is the highest recognition given to the most innovative retail operators as well as people who have an outstanding influence on driving the retail industry with vision, courage and a commitment to turn dreams into reality, and who succeed and become an inspiration and role models for others.

Chadatip Chutrakul, CEO at Siam Piwat Co, Ltd, said: “Over the past 60 years, Siam Piwat has been committed to being a leader in creativity and innovation as we keep creating prototypes and new standards to develop the retailing and retail development sector to help contribute to the prosperity of Thailand. What we’ve done is not just innovative and revolutionary for Thailand, but even on the global stage in our industry. Many of our projects have now been recognised for their success on the global stage as important game-changers.”

“The success of Iconsiam is the result of a great collaboration of creative talent at the national level. We are deeply grateful to the many Thais involved with the project from around the country, in the private sector, the government sector, as well as artists and experts in a myriad of different fields,” Chadatip said.

“They are people from all walks of life from all over the country as well as world-renown specialists from many countries that love Thailand. These thousands of co-creators shared a common desire to create a new icon that will represent the era’s vision and aimed to make Thai people proud of their origins, their culture, and their heritage, as well as preserve our values for the next generation, and also to impress visitors and people all over the world so that they may fall in love with Thailand,” she said.

The firm said it will continue to enhance livelihoods for Thais and reduce plastic waste.

Robert Candelino, Asean CEO for Unilever, said the Thai operations have been successfully integrated the principle of sustainable living, into business practices since last year.

With 87 years in Thailand, Unilever has been serving a wide range of products to Thai consumers. Unilever is ranked as the market leader in seven major product segments including laundry detergents, hair cleansing products, skin cleansing products, detergents, rice porridge products, and ice cream and skin care.

The company said 99 per cent of 24.7 million households in Thailand make a purchase from Unilever more than two times a month, with a repurchase rate of over 99 per cent.

“We have redefined our goal to be a ‘purpose-led, future-fit’ company, standing firm and surviving business challenges in any market circumstance,” Candelino said.

 The group said in a press release on Thursday that specialty foods are  “unique and high-value food items made in small quantities from high-quality ingredients”.

The popularity of specialty foods fuel interests from both retailers and consumers, becoming one of the fastest growing segments in the specialty food business with US$140.3 billion (Bt4.4 trillion) record sales in 2018 within the US market alone, the association said.

It’s a revolutionising business, and an exciting one for the Thailand-based food manufacturing powerhouse NR Instant Produce as they announced their ambitious plans to take leadership role in global Specialty foods industry.

NR Instant Produce (NRF), the leading purveyor of Asian ethnic flavors for almost three decades, originated from a humble beginning as a manufacturing and distribution shop-house factory in 1991. By 1996, NRF initiated market entry exports to the U.S.A, followed by a major export drive to the UK in 2001, then launching its own OEM brand, Por Kwan, in export markets targeting Asian ethnics in the US and Europe.

The company was already on its path to success – becoming one of the first manufacturers to receiving an BRC Accreditation, signing Woolworth’s as their first private label customer, and at last, achieving its first Bt1 billion turnover in 2011.

NRF’s brand leadership in the ethnic oriental supermarkets and position as Europe’s leading supermarket co-packer caught the interests of Hatton Capital Limited.

Danai Pathomvanich, Managing Partner of Hatton Capital, has been investing in the food industry for the past decade and recently completed half a billion dollars in acquisition to date.

Danai acquired NR Instant Produce in April 2017 determined to elevate and transform the Thai-bred manufacturer NRF into a global player with a thriving new executive direction. NRF main product categories consist of ethnic oriental foods, plant-based foods, seasoning, recipe, RTE, beverage, and better for you foods and ingredients.

Danai said:“Today’s millennials are the largest consumer segment and enforcing the key trends within the global food industry, particularly driving the demands for high quality, specialty foods that they’re willing to pay more for. Thailand needs to move beyond commoditized products and into niche, higher value or quality products that are relevant to today’s millennials. Some prominent brands that fail to stay relevant are finding their market share will get quickly eroded, while some global MNC’s have already started to move into specialty or craft products via acquisitions or investments.”

He added: “I believe NRF has a unique opportunity to take a global leadership role as a producer of oriental foods from Southeast Asia and build Thailand as a food production hub for the specialty foods category, considered the fastest growing ethnic food segments in the world.”NRF remains laser-focused on playing a pivotal role in elevating the standards of food manufacturing, transforming farming techniques, sourcing, producing, and the way they feed the world.

“With this new direction the company prepared its rebranding process, starting with changing its corporate logo NR to the current NRF (an abbreviation for Nature Regenerative Foods). NRF stands symbolised for the company to take care of farmers, producers, and the earth in order for it to feed the world – a telling sign of sustainability at the core of its business.”

Unveiling their ambitious plan, Danai proudly explains NRF’s latest sustainability program.

The manufacturing giant has invested resources and capital in a national cooperation between Thailand’s leading wholesale markets and the Faculty of Medical Technology, Mahidol University to elevate Thai farming and techniques to internationally standards, encouraging ‘safe foods’ quality produce. What’s their ultimate goal? To improve the livelihood of Thai farmers.

“Thailand has already lost billions of dollars in lost opportunities due to compliance standards in OECD countries such as pesticide residue. The implementation of the process has been excruciating, however I believe by transforming the way we farm, both NRF and the country could recover lost market opportunities. We need to improve our food production system now, so Thailand and our local farmers will not be left behind as the global food market races to its peak,” added Danai.

NRF continues to make sustainable food experiences enjoyable while raising the quality of life for their stakeholders, making the world sustainable one SKU at a time. Given its status as a leading manufacturer in co-packing and private label OEM, NRF is exporting to more than 25 countries with over 3,000+ SKUs, consisting of 100+ brands within 9 categories, with products already present in ethnic supermarkets major countries around the world.

NRF aims to penetrate the Thai local market with main categories; seasoning, vegetarian foods, and healthy foods. It also boasts its aggressive plan to move forward to development sustainable production together with local farmers to improve their livelihoods.

In determination to raise Thailand’s specialty food industry to meet international standards and position Thailand as a manufacturing hub, NRF sets a goal to generate cumulative revenue of NRF and its subsidiaries of more than Bt10 billion for over the next 5 years. So far, the 2017 annual sales revenue was Bt1.087 billion, within 2018 was Bt1.120 billion, with expected generated sales in 2019 of over Bt1.377 billion – an increase of 23 per cent.