Chatchai said that this year the bank has invested in 10 SMEs and startup firms for a combined Bt279 million under the joint-venture programme. About 20 other firms are under consideration for investment support valued at up to Bt900 million, he told a press conference, adding that decisions regarding the second batch of firms would be made this year.

Most of the first batch of companies are engaged in innovative technologies that have scope to boost the development of the bank’s business platform to better equip it for the digital economy era.

The lender cited as examples its investments as diverse as robotics for smart farming, a cloud accounting platform, a monitoring and data analytics company, social media management, a loyalty card programme, digital marketing, online books and magazines, and visual effects and production houses.

Chatchai said the other 20 startups are also pursuing innovation and the development of business platforms. With the bank’s support, they would help GSB to increase its non-interest income from an average of 5 per cent last year to 10 per cent over the next three years, he said.

“We invest in startups and SMEs when we see an opportunity to collaborate with them to develop the business platform for the bank’s service to our customers,” Chatchai said.

“This will be our tool to boost our non-interest income when, as nowadays, we are collecting less fee income from our services to customers.

“This means we have to find a new business model to increase our fee income from new business. The investment to develop new business platforms with startups will be the way to create innovative technology that will drive the bank’s income growth for the long term.”

He said that if the demand for investments in startup and SMEs exceeded the Bt2 billion allocation, the bank would aim to top up this budget in any future round of investments.

Chatchai said that investments in startups and SMEs usually take about four years to lay the foundations for business growth. In the following four years, the promising enterprises would start to generate profits and pay dividends to their investors. In the two years beyond that, the bank would consider whether to sell its stakes in these ventures.

“We expect return an investment average of 15 per cent a year,” Chatchai said. “And we may get even better returns if sell our stakes when the businesses are much stronger in, say, 10 years from now. This depends on the business financial results in the future.”

Normally, the bank would hold only a 49 per cent stake in a joint venture firm. “All of them are Thai companies, so this is the bank’s way of supporting the government’s policy to promote a digital economy under Thailand 4.0,” Chatchai said.

He said that this year the bank’s strategy was to strive to be “the best and biggest local bank in Thailand” by focusing on loans to the lower-income market. This was in keeping, Chatchai said, with the government’s policy to improve people’s quality of living and create careers for low-income earners and boost SMEs and start-ups.

“This will support the government’s policy to improve the prospects for lower-income people to have a job and create their own income over long term. This is a way to improve the quality of living for lower-income people,” he said.

To support its business strategy, the bank plans to open business centres to serve SMEs and startup nationwide, with up to 82 such centres planned this year from 37 at the end of March.

This strategy is expected to drive new loans growth to 6 per cent this year compared with last year, Chatchai said.

At the end of 2017, the bank reported net profit of Bt31.2 billion, up 20.27 per cent from Bt25.94 billion for 2016.

Meanwhile, in the first quarter of this year, GSB announced 100 per cent growth in net profit year on year. The net profit of Bt13.479 billion for the quarter was boosted by gains from the sale of the bank’s stake in IRPC Plc to PTT Plc early this year.

The bank also saw growth in approval of new loans worth Bt149.3 billion in the first quarter of this year, driving outstanding loans as of March 31 to Bt2.05 trillion, up 2.24 per cent from the end of 2017. The new loans were extended to SMEs, state enterprises, and also in the form of micro-finance for micro-businesses. The bank’s deposits reached Bt2.17 trillion on March 31, while total assets were Bt2.62 trillion, dropping 1.61 per cent from the end of 2017.

Launched last September, the advanced HL-class gas turbines combine a series of new but tested technologies to enhance the next level of efficiency and performance of combined-cycle power plants.

The HL-class is clearing the way to efficiency levels beyond 63 per cent with a mid-term goal to reach 65 per cent.

Thomas Hagedorn, head of sales for the Asia and Pacific region of the Siemens power and gas division, said Thailand has been always a very significant market and one of the biggest in Southeast Asia for the large gas turbine.

“As we continue our cooperation, I believe we would be able to offer HL-class as the next project in Thailand. And EGAT (Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand) is our next target. We are ready to supply it anytime,” Hagedorn told The Nation in a recent interview.

Siemens has provided four power plant projects for EGAT over the past 10 years: Chana 1, Bang Pakong 5, Chana 2, and Wang Noi 4.

And last year, Siemens with its Japanese consortium partner Marubeni Corporation signed a contract with the state-owned utility for the delivery of a turnkey combined cycle power plant named South Bangkok.

Courtesy of Siemens: Siemens’ new HL-Class turbine

Hagedorn said the cutting-edge machine would benefit the country as the gas price in Thailand is quite high, due in part to the need for energy imports.

“So, it means you need to have a high-efficiency machine to produce affordable electricity. Also, Thailand has plans to replace older-technology plants with next technology,” said Hagedorn.

Thailand depends heavily on gas, accounting for 70-75 per of the country’s energy base, he said.

In his view, the need to diversify the energy mix is high on the country’s agenda. But whereas coal is the cheapest energy source, its social acceptability is under challenge, said Hagedorn, referring to pollution concerns.

“Looking into the challenges, I believe Thailand will continue to build quite significant capacity in gas-fired power plants,” Hagedorn said.

At a presentation to media from Asean countries at Siemens’ gas turbine plant in Berlin last week, Hagedorn, who has spent almost his whole working life in Asia-Pacific countries, said gas-fired power was very important nowadays.

Hence, the new gas turbine is very important because the higher efficiency, the more electricity produced and the less carbon dioxide emitted, he said.

The new HL-class represents an evolutionary development step derived from its proven SGT-8000H technology, said Hagedorn, citing its achievement of greater than 63 per cent efficiency with the mid-term goal to reach 65 per cent.

Thomas Hagedorn

The development of the new class took five years, just half that for the H class, due to the advances in technology and digitalisation that Siemens used in its business operation, Hagedorn said.

Kolja Schwarz, head of HL-class portfolio management, said that Siemens’ specialists developed advanced combustion technologies, innovative multi-layer coatings and improved internal cooling features, as well as an enhanced water-steam cycle that enables the turbines to operate at high-combustion temperatures to achieve optimal performance.

Optimised sealings also minimise air leakage and cooling.

At the same time, evolutionary 3D-blading is enabling higher aero-efficiency for the compressor. Predefined and prefabricated solution elements as well as pre-selected vendors and products allow a significantly reduced construction time and a fast start for projects.

He said the new turbines can be integrated into Siemens’ digital portfolio for plant operators and utilities, including connectivity to MindSphere, the cloud-based operating system for the Internet of Things.

Courtesy of Siemens

MindSphere offers access to powerful analytics from Siemens and its partners, using intuitive insights in engine operation and decision support to deliver benefits to customers.

All other additional digital services provided in the new class are aimed at avoiding failure, Schwarz said.

For example, if you know the condition of an engine and are aware of the possible risks to its performance, you will be able to step in by changing its operation mode to avoid failure, he said.

The company has a four-year timefame to test and validate the technologies of the HL class at Duke Energy’s Lincoln County site in North Carolina, in the United States.

“It’s a unique opportunity for us to test under real conditions at a customer site,” Schwarz said.

The duo are confident that the collaboration is a win-win strategy, contributing to greater efficiency in expanding distribution channels, cutting costs and boosting business opportunities.

COM7 and KBank have received positive feedback since launching their first joint BaNANA pilot branch in Yasothon.

Building on the upbeat momentum, the two plan to have 20 venues with KBank mini-branches of BaNANA by the year’s end, unveiling a new dimension with more diverse retail business and comprehensive financial services in Thailand, Sura Khanittaweekul, chief executive officer of COM7, said on Monday.

The listed company is targeting to achieve 600 branches under its management by the end of the year, up from 434 last year, representing the strength of its excellent products, services that reach out to customers nationwide and being able to add value to other businesses, he added.

COM7 has set an income-growth target of not lower than 15 per cent for this year, the CEO said.

Last year’s income came in at Bt22.584 billion and net profit at Bt608.8 million, both record highs for the business.

Thailand’s overall market for bottled water is worth around Bt24 billion.

The company expects the launch of the new global brand identity and the global campaign to emphasise that the Nestlé Pure Life brand is the high-quality bottled water that “provides a future full of possibilities to parents and children who are building a brighter future together”, Anongporn Manopichetwatana, marketing manager – waters at Nestlé (Thai), said on Monday.

It is the ideal product for parents to choose to help develop their children’s habit of regularly drinking water, Anongporn added.

The bank also saw growth in approval of new loans worth Bt149.3 billion in the first quarter of this year, driving outstanding loans as of March 31 to Bt2.05 trillion, up 2.24 per cent from the end of 2017. The new loans were extended to small and medium enterprises (SMEs), state enterprises, and also micro-finance for micro-businesses.

The bank’s deposits recorded Bt2.17 trillion as of March 31 while total assets recorded Bt2.62 trillion, dropping 1.61 per cent from the end of 2017.

Chatchai said that this year’s strategy would strive to make it “the best and biggest local bank in Thailand” by focusing on loans to the lower-income market, in keeping with the government’s policy to improve the quality of living and creating careers for lower income people, SMEs and start-ups.

This strategy is expected to drive new loans growth to six per cent this year compared with last year, he said.

Thai rice exports peaked in 2017 at 11.6 million tonnes while the export target for 2018 is 10 million tonnes, according to the Department of International Trade Promotion (DITP) at the Ministry of Commerce.

White rice made up the bulk of Thai rice exports (48.7 per cent), followed by sticky rice (27.7 per cent) and Thai Jasmine rice (16.2 per cent).

“Almost all Thai rice exports fetched higher prices in April, while Thai Jasmine rice was stable at US$1,150 per tonne,” said DITP director general Adul Chotinisakorn. “The export trend for the second quarter of 2018 is also positive due to higher demand from many rice-importing countries, including China, the Philippines and Indonesia.”

Manage

Backing his faith in the durability of a consumer trend towards products with green credentials, Thanavate quit his job seven years ago to set up Thai TRS Co Ltd as a venture that makes use of recycled and other natural materials. The company has leveraged growing sales in the domestic market to reap export success in overseas markets, including in mainland China, Taiwan and Singapore. Sales at the company – which Thanavate runs with his wife Rattanin Supurtipanish – now total about Bt2 million a year.

“We decided to establish our business and create our own brand for a green product line after Rattanin and I saw that we could draw on our long experience of working in advertising and from our background in design. We had graduated with bachelors’ degrees in product design in the architecture field,” Thanavate said in an interview with The Nation recently.

For their first product, the couple struck upon the idea of making gift-wrapping paper that can have a second use. Their assessment of the market showed strong demand for gift paper, but they wanted to overcome the problem that such paper is produced as a throwaway product.

“We designed our gift wrapping to be made from paper that can be used for a second time by making perforations in the paper. After a gift is unwrapped, people can cut the paper along the perforation line and then use the paper as a notepad,” Thanavate said.

Rounding out the green appeal of the product, the company uses recycled paper as well as environmentally friendly soybean ink.

Thanavate said they had secured intellectual property rights for the product from the Commerce Ministry.

In the first year of the product’s launch in 2012, the gift wrapping paper – sold under the Apiece(s) off Paper brand – notched sales of Bt100,000.

While the first-year sales came in lower than their expectations, Thanavate said they picked up after they displayed the product at an exhibition.

The wider exposure from the exhibition inspired Thanavate and Rattanin to create more green-themed and recycled products. They have since brought to the market notebooks, gift boxes, cosmetic bags, stationery bags and the like. Most of them use recycled and other natural raw materials.

The couple are particularly proud of one of their designs that won acclaim this year. The Eco-Envelope Folder is an envelope that can be transformed into a document file. It was among the winners in the Thailand Green Design Awards 2018 (TGDA2018). The Eco-Envelope Folder won in the category for resource efficiency for a product by entrepreneurs. The awards were conducted by the Kasetsart Agricultural and Agro-Industrial Product Improvement Institute (KAPI) of Kasetsart University, with the winners announced in March.

“As I receive many envelopes over a typical month, I asked myself how I can recycle them rather than throw them into the rubbish bin. As a result, I designed an envelope that becomes a document file after it is opened. The innovation that we came up not only reduces the amount of garbage but gives consumers a new product to use,” Thanavate said.

With their success in the TGDA2018 event, Thanavate plans to apply with the Commerce Ministry for intellectual property rights protection for the Eco-Envelope Folder. The company also plans to export the product abroad.

“After we gained that award, that helped us to promote our brand and was especially important for a small firm like ours,” Thanavate said. “This gave us recognition and encouragement to create more innovative and green products. In this way, we can differentiate our products from others in the market. This also creates value for our products.”

He said the growing awareness among consumers for green-themed and recycled products was a positive factor for their business and that they were determined to keep coming out with products that addressed this market demand.