The Bt2,2 billion facility will produce 1 billion bottles per year, the company’s deputy managing director and chief productions officer Kamoldist Smuthkochorn said. Part of the company’s plan to ramp up production capacity through vertical integration, the new plant houses three units for the manufacturing of glass bottles , energy drink bottles and aluminum cans, he said

He added that the new production centre is a joint venture with Japan-based investor Showa Denko Group is one of the steps that will strengthen the Carabao group as it attempts to create a fully-integrated operation and expand into upstream industries. The Showa Denko Group is one of Japan’s 5 largest manufacturers of aluminum products with 3 production bases and technical support centres across Japan .

The second Huawei Myanmar ICT Congress, which began yesterday, is drawing participants from the country’s technology sphere.

Zhang Liman, chief executive officer of Huawei Myanmar, said the company has committed itself to helping the government and the private sector to embrace digital transformation in order to bring about a better future.

The ICT congress, which lasts until August 24, is being held at the customer solution innovation and integration experience centre in Huawei’s Myanmar head office in Yangon.

“With years of experience in the communications industry and profound customer requirement understanding, Huawei is focusing its efforts on establishing a strong industry environment and helping Myanmar leap forward, and to bring digital technology to every person, home and organisation,” said Liman.

“The event serves as an essential platform where we will share and discuss ways to collaborate with key industry partners, leading ICT organisations and institutions, operators, and other stakeholders, to create a healthy ecosystem that will create fresh opportunities, businesses, services and applications.”

He said the leading digital transformation practices in four core areas – public safety, the financial services industry, the provision of Internet services and smart cities – will be unveiled at the event. “This will fundamentally change the daily life of locals and help accelerate economic development and social progress,” he said.

Liman said the event is the sequel of an event that targeted local telecommunications carriers in June.

Jason Chen, product manager at the firm’s EBG marketing and solution sales department, said: “This second round is targeting enterprises and it is showcasing the key technology trends, topics, feature solutions and high-end technologies which enable them to leverage innovative technologies to improve their competitive edge. This will bring them convenience and business growth.”

At a media briefing on Tuesday night, Chen shared the insights of people behind the leading products and scenario-specific solutions like a next-generation data centre, media giga access, financial cloud solutions, digital banking, collaborative public safety, smart cities, e-government and digital industry solutions.

“Huawei’s strategy is to build the nervous system for better connections. We always make sure that all things are sensible, connected and intelligent,” said Chen.

He said Huawei is promoting the construction of smart cities around the world. So far, the company’s solutions are used in more than 120 cities in over 40 countries. He highlighted the importance of smart metering, smart streetlights, smart manhole covers, smart waste bins, smart fire hydrants and smart government in the implementation of smart cities.

“Our smart city solutions are now used in Asean countries including Singapore, Indonesia and even Laos. As a member of Asean, we also believe in the Myanmar market, as the government aims to leapfrog others in terms of technology,” Chen said.

Chen said Huawei’s solutions can save a lot of time and energy for people, as “they can significantly reduce the long waiting queues, numerous paper certificates, and unbalanced load at different windows”. Additionally, the solutions are designed to address the lack of unified information verification, lack of collaboration among different agencies and insufficient data sharing.

“Regional authorities and the mayor can improve city management and decision making by using our solutions at the intelligent operation centre, based on big data. We call it building a smart city brain,” he said.

He said Huawei heavily invests in chipsets, which it considers the “heart” of technical operations that improve enterprise performance.

Nguyen Xuan Phuc said he wants the Thailand-based company to continue to promote investments in this sector in Vietnam.

Phuc said that Thailand has more than 490 investment projects in Vietnam with a total capital of nearly US$10 billion.

He said this scale of investment indicated the efficiency of business investment by Thai enterprises in Vietnam.

Phuc highlighted some of the big projects that Thai investors were participating in, such as the Southern Petrochemical Complex Project.

The Vietnamese leader urged Gulf Energy Development not to miss any opportunities for further investment in Vietnam.

Phuc said his government had created favourable conditions for investors doing business in Vietnam, including in the field of renewable energy. The prime minister asked Gulf Energy Development’s top executives to work with the Ministry of Industry and Trade on pricing and other issues to boost investment.

He also noted that the group must ensure a reasonable and competitive price, as many businesses have been investing in this field.

“We would like to thank Prime Minister Nguyen Thanh Phuc for his continued support,” said Sarath Ratanavadi, chief executive of Gulf Energy Development, who added that he is very interested in the renewable energy field in Vietnam and has cooperated with several partners in Vietnam to implement some projects.

The company is particularly interested in solar energy.

Expressing his praise for Phuc in stopping investment in new coal-fired power plants, Sarath said that he would continue to look into further business opportunities in Vietnam. “At the same time, we have faith in the favourable policies of Vietnam for these projects to be successful.

“This will encourage other foreign investors to move into Vietnam.”

The government’s policy to promote the 10 targeted S-curve industries for development in the EEC has helped to boost demand for industrial premises, said Jareeporn, adding that the company hoped to finalise a deal with up to five customers before the end of this year.

The government’s 10 priority industries include auto-part manufacturing and consumer products, as well as new industries supported by the government such as aerospace and next-generation automotive manufacturing.

With the deal expected this year, the company has confidence in the business outlook for the second half of this year, eyeing “tremendous growth”, especially from the industrial estates business and the logistics development business due to the industrial estates’ locations within the EEC area, Jareeporn said.

The company’s ambitions fit with the company’s mission to promote the targeted 10 hi-tech industries, she said.

In addition, negotiations are under way for built-to-suit contracts for warehouse and distribution centres with two large customers, accounting for 170,000 square metres.

This has led to an increase in the rental area of the warehouse and factory from both built-to-suit and ready-built of up to 60,000 square metres in the first half of this year.

For the fourth quarter of this year, the company is preparing to monetise its assets to WHA Premium Growth Real Estate Investment Trust (WHART) and Hemaraj Leasehold Estate Investment Trust (HREIT), “which are expected to be executed as planned and the revenue will be recognised in fourth quarter of this year”, Jareeporn said.

The company yesterday announced net profit of Bt1.08 billion in the first half of this year, up 3 per cent from the same period of last year.

Jareeporn said the company’s total revenue and share of profit of associates and joint ventures in the first half of this year reached Bt5.47 billion, increasing by 14.6 per cent from the Bt4.77 billion booked for the same period of last year.

The key drivers of the operational growth in the first six months came from the asset monetisation to Hemaraj Leasehold Real Estate Investment Trust (HREIT), with an asset value of Bt1.59 billion at the beginning of the year, increasing sales volume of utilities service in line with the demand from customers in the industrial estates, and the COD of the 5 SPP projects since the second quarter of last year onwards. Jareeporn said This led to a record increase in the share of profit from power business, which saw a total installed capacity of 510.5 MW, excluding a solar rooftop service which is under negotiation with up to eight customers. This accounts for about 5-6 MW, with an expected year-end solar rooftop service to be about 10 MW.

In the second quarter of this year, the company was affected by the depreciation of the baht against US dollar, as well as a decrease in the number of land transfers compared with the same quarter of last year.

The company recorded total revenue and the share of profit of associates and joint ventures of Bt2.02 billion, a decrease of 41 per cent from the same quarter of last year.

Net profit fell by Bt669 million, a 69 per cent decrease. However, the normalised net profit, excluding accounting implications on foreign exchange FX changes, dropped by Bt379 million or 42 per cent.

The joint venture, istyle Retail Thailand Co Ltd, is formed under a 70 per cent and 30 per cent partnership respectively between istyle Inc and Siam Piwat Group.

The first @cosme store in Thailand will be located at Iconsiam, which will officially open by the end of this year.

Siam Piwat is the owner and operator of prestige retail developments in Bangkok such as Siam Paragon, Siam Center, and Siam Discovery.

Kei Sugawara, director, chief financial officer and senior vice president of global, istyle Inc, said the company believes that Thailand and Bangkok in particular have strong potential, citing the two key factors of GDP per capital and total consumer spending on cosmetic products per month.

“We have studied the Thai market and found that Bangkok’s GDP is high and consumers in Bangkok, compared with consumers in other countries in this region, are the top spender on beauty and cosmetic goods. In addition, we also found that Thai women really love things that related to their beauty, which is a very good opportunity for us in expanding our beauty business to this potential market,” said Sugawara.

“In the next three years, we expect that we will have around 50-60 @cosme stores around the world. Currently, we have stores in Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Now we are going to open another five @cosme stores in Thailand, with he the first store at Iconsiam. We believe that the Southeast Asian region has potential. Anyway, Thailand is the most important market and that is where we have decided to start ,” he said.

Usara Yongpiyakul, chief executive officer of Siam Piwat Retail Holding Co Ltd said istyle Inc’s @cosme is a phenomenon in Japan that has taken the entire beauty sector by storm. Two out of every three young Japanese women, age between 20 and 30, use the portal for beauty advice.

“We (Siam Piwat) believe in partnership and collaboration as the best way to succeed in the fast-evolving retail environment. The @cosme retailing concept that merges online consumer engagement with offline sales is extremely innovative and will be exciting for Thai consumers. Next to that, this joint venture will facilitate the arrival in Thailand of many new, high quality Japanese beauty brands that have not been available to consumers in Thailand,” she said, adding that the @cosme business will further strengthen Siam Piwat’s retail portfolio, which already includes the Loft, Korean lifestyle store ALAND, multi-brand decorative store ODS, and multi-brand casual wear store CAZH, among others.

Usara said that with this joint venture, the company is planning to open five @cosme stores in Thailand with the first store will be at Iconsiam and the second at Siam Center. Locations for the other three stores are under consideration and working process. The first @cosme store, which is located at Iconsiam will be officially opened at the same time as the opening of the shopping complex saying late this year.

“Now, we are focusing on the plan to open five @cosme stores in Thailand. We will do our best, with our strength, to make sure that these @ cosme stores will be very successful and we hope that this will be a sensation for Thailand market and Thai consumers will enjoy this new-to-Thailand concept stores,” she said, adding that for Thailand, the company expected the total sales earned by @cosme stores to reach Bt300 million totally in the first three years.

iStyle Group has been growing very rapidly, with sales of the fiscal year ending June 2018 leaping 50.7 per cent from the previous year and reaching around Bt8.55 billion (JPY 28.47 billion).

The move is part of the firm’s ever-growing venture-capital journey focusing on global artificial intelligence and blockchain for the bank’s uninterrupted product and service enhancement.

Sam Tanskul, managing director of Krungsri Finnovate, said on Tuesday that the company had invested in the SBI fund for two reasons.

First, it is among those world-class funds with the investment focus on fintech, in which SBI now has best-in-class expertise.

SBI has a proven track record of successful fintech fund management with its diversified investments in over 100 successful up-and-coming start-ups around the world, he said.

Secondly, SBI launched the new SBI AI & Blockchain Fund with a focus on investment in AI and blockchain technologies.

The fund fits in perfectly with global financial trends as well as Krungsri’s direction toward leveraging AI and blockchain technologies, he said, adding that Krungsri Finnovate therefore sees this investment as “great execution of our digital banking and innovation strategy”.

Investment in the long-term fund, which has a size of around ¥50 billion (Bt15 billion), marks the fourth investment of Krungsri Finnovate, after preceding direct investments in start-ups.

Throughout this year, Krungsri Finnovate aims to partner up with a total of 40 start-ups, so that they can work with the bank and its subsidiaries, Sam said.

Twenty-five of these deals have already accomplished.

The company’s investment in the SBI AI & Blockchain Fund will pave the path toward its goal in working with top global fintech start-ups, he added.

UOB is the first Singapore bank to open a foreign-owned subsidiary bank in Vietnam.

It had been operating under a branch licence since July 1995, before incorporating the new subsidiary.

Wee Ee Cheong, UOB deputy chairman and chief executive officer, said: “The opening of our local subsidiary marks a new milestone for UOB in Vietnam. Over the last 20 years, we have been steadfast in our commitment to support Vietnam’s economic growth as we connect our clients to investment opportunities in the country.

“Vietnam continues to be one of the fastest-growing economies in Southeast Asia and is a strategically important market for many businesses. Our investment into the local subsidiary will deepen our presence in Vietnam and ensure that we are well-equipped to support our regional clients as well as Vietnamese consumers and companies in meeting their financial needs for the long term.”