WHA Hemaraj Nghe, a joint venture company and a subsidiary of WHA Corporation plc , recently held a groundbreaking ceremony for the ‘WHA Hemaraj Industrial Zone – Nghe An’ in Nghi Thuan Commune, Nghe An Province, Vietnam in the presence of guests led by Deputy Prime Minister of Vietnam Vuong Dinh Hue and Nguyen Xuan Duong, chairman of Nghe An Provincial People Committee.

David Nardone, WHA Corporation’s Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors, was also present together with board members and company executives for the ceremony which was attended by 200 guests. The event coincided with the “2018 Investors Conference” organised by the Nghe An Provincial People Committee.

In 2017, WHA Hemaraj Nghe An Joint Stock Company was established to develop “WHA Hemaraj Industrial Zone – Nghe An” that will cover 3,200 hectares upon completion. The project has been granted an Investment Registration Certificate (IRC) to develop its first phase (498 hectares), with construction starting this April 2018. This site will be available to early customers by the fourth quarter of 2018, providing full access to electricity, modern telecommunications and utilities. High quality and well-designed ready-built factories, ranging from 500 to 10,000 square metres, will also be offered to investors.

Nardone, on behalf of WHA Group, thanked the Prime Minister of Vietnam Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Vietnamese authorities, including Vietnam’s government, Nghe An Provincial People Committee, the Dong Nam Economic Zone and Vietnam Electricity (EVN) for their collaboration and continuous support.

He also expressed his confidence in this first phase’s development.

“It is clearly a milestone moment for WHA Group to see our first industrial zone investment in Vietnam forging ahead, and we are looking forward to welcoming our initial customers by the end of this year,” he declared.

“Vietnam has been attracting foreign investors as it is now an important industrial and manufacturing base in Asia,” said Nardone.

“We look forward to opening our doors to companies from different sectors including automotive, textile, electronics, consumer, logistics and many others. We will continue to pioneer more solutions to accompany them as |they reach their full potential and achieve their goals” he added.

Turkish Airlines goes for A350 XWB

Istanbul-based Turkish Airlines has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to acquire 25 A350-900 aircraft plus five options, underlining its strong confidence in the global market-dynamism and growth.

“With Turkish Airlines serving more destinations than any other airline around the world, we are delighted to build our future on Airbus’ all-new A350 XWB to support the development of our international route-network from our Istanbul and Ankara hubs.” said Turkish Airlines Chairman, M. Ilker Ayci.

“We are extremely proud at Airbus to count Turkish Airlines as a new A350 operator, the world’s most modern and efficient widebody aircraft.” said Eric Schulz, Chief Commercial Officer, Airbus. “This order strengthens and expands the long-lasting partnership between Airbus, Turkish Airlines and Turkey overall.”

Turkish Airlines currently operates an Airbus fleet of 167 aircraft with a further 92 A321neo on backlog.

Turkey is an integral part of the Airbus supply chain for almost 20 years, being a partner in all Airbus aircraft programmes, including the prestigious A350 XWB.

Starbucks launches Songkran drinkware

With just a month left before the Thai New Year festival kicks off, most people are already looking for the best spots to go wild with their friends and enjoy water fights and street parties or planning to visit their families during this long holiday of joy.

Starbucks (Thailand) will join in the new year celebration with the launch of a Songkran drinkware collection that allows partygoers to stay fresh and hydrated all day long. Hurry and grab your favourite item from any Starbucks store nationwide from today while stocks last!

Samson Controls boosts new distribution centre

Samson Controls Thailand has injected more than Bt200 million in boosting its new distribution centre in response to the growing demand for emerging businesses in the country, where the economic outlook is bright.

Samson Controls Thailand has built a large-sized warehouse worth more than Bt60 million to optimise inventory balances and maximise the capability and quality of manufactured products to be distributed to strategic partners from several key industries, such as petrochemical, oil refinery, power plant, food and beverage, and various other businesses requiring high-quality control valves and accessories manufactured with certified production standards, as part of the ambitious goal to maximise manufacturing potential and elevate the quality standards of Thailand’s industrial sector to be highly efficient and competitive in the Asean market.

Junlanop Chantabunyakul, managing director of Samson Controls Thailand Company Limited, said “Since 2001, we combine our major strengths in manufacturing excellent products, sound service management, cutting-edge technology, and efficient machinery together, leading to the existence of Samson Controls Thailand.

With several years of business operations in Thailand, the company successfully generated more than Bt26 million of sales in the first year, thanks to our well-developed strategies on inventory management to support our business partners’ greater production capacity.

“To cope efficiently with the existence of the Asean Economic Community, the company has determined to increase its registered capital to Bt27 million, with the expectation to achieve a sales volume of Bt400 million by 2020, increasing from Bt320 million in 2017.

Such achievement makes Samson Controls Thailand the biggest sales champion among others in the neighbouring nations in Southeast Asia. Additionally, the new distribution centre has been established to support the development of our maintenance services for control valves, aiming to provide all customers with the highest satisfaction of both products and services.

Situated on a large land plot of over seven rai and a vast usable area of more than 5,400 square meters reserved for maintenance activities, the new distribution centre has become more powerful with advanced energy-saving innovation and high-quality construction materials, aiming to support the continuing operations and expansion for the next 80 years,” said Junlanop.

The launch marks the first time that the South Korean company has accorded Thailand the status of a first-tier market.

Wichai Pornpratang, corporate vice president, IT and mobile communications, Thai Samsung Electronics, said the country’s higher status as a market reflects not only sales volume but takes account of how active Thais are on Internet usage and social media engagement, as well as the sate of the of the 4G cellular network in Thailand.

“Thailand is the country with the world’s No 1 ranking for Internet usage, with people spending an average of five hours a day connected,” said Wichai.

“The five most popular mobile activities in Thailand are messaging, video streaming, gaming, mobile banking, and maps. Meanwhile, around 90 per cent of Facebook usage is carried out on mobile phones while video content is the most engaging feature on Facebook.”

High penetration rate

The rate of smartphone market penetration in Thailand is almost 100 per cent, and marketing budges are in increasing in line with these sales volumes.

“We are still in a healthy position as market leader and will continue to maintain our market leadership with innovation,” said Wichai.

“Samsung will use artificial intelligence to create innovative marketing strategies. Augmented reality and AI will be technologies that based in the smartphones,” he said.

“On Samsung’s Galaxy Gift customer relationship management (CRM) platform, there are over one million users.”

The Galaxy S9 is offered with 64GB at Bt27,900, while the Galaxy S9+ is Bt31,900 for 64GB capacity, Bt33,900 for 128GB, and Bt37,900 for 256GB.

In a company statement, the CEO referred to local reports that National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) member Prawit Leesathapornwongsa had said no spectrum auctions would be held until late this year.

Norling said DTAC was well aware of the situation, and therefore ensured uninterrupted network services to customers after the end of its 1800MHz and 850MHz concession.

The acting NBTC membership was earlier expected to auction DTAC’s 1,800MHz and 850MHz spectra in May this year.

However, the agency’s board last month resolved to put the brakes on the auction plan, pending the Council of State’s reply as to whether it had the authority to call for bids as an acting regulator.

The Council of State has yet to reply to the regulator.

Norling added that DTAC fully hoped that the incoming NBTC board would review the auction rules and design in order to ensure that no artificial spectrum scarcity is created, and accelerate the future expansion of mobile data services for consumers in the Thailand 4.0 era.

As of the end of last year, DTAC had around 22.7 million mobile-phone subscribers.

The marketing deal will leverage branding cooperation of the two dynamic and motivated organisations to tap into larger market reach in Asia, the Thailand-based regional carrier said.

The cooperative venture includes a variety of advertising and promotional components of co-branding campaigns in Thailand, other Southeast Asian countries, China, Hong Kong, India and Bangladesh, which will enhance the airline’s brand recognition across the region, Bangkok Airways president Puttipong Prasarttong-Osoth told the press.

“Apart from the traditional scope of sponsorships like co-branding and advertising campaigns running throughout 2018 to 2020, the highlight of the partnership is the BVB Evonik Football School for children, as giving back to the community has been part of our business road map for many years. We will work with our dedicated CSR [corporate social responsibility] team to make this sponsorship activation tangible,” he added.

This comes after AIS acquired shares in Rabbit LinePay by injecting more than Bt787 million the platform and targeting up to 10 million Rabbit LinePay users over the next three years.

This would support VGI’s vision in providing offline-to-online (O2O) solutions, the company’s deputy chief executive officer, Nelson Leung, said in a press release on Monday.

With Rabbit Group’s database of more 8.5 million customers, VGI has good access to the target group, he said.

RHIS is a wholly owned subsidiary of Ratchaburi Electricity Generating Holding PCL (Ratch, Baa1 stable).

The rating outlook is stable.

Parisothat Punnabhum, senior executive vice president of CPF’s human resources, said the firm is promoting labour right awareness among workers and encouraging all to express their opinions and concerns to the “Labour Voices by LPN”, the hotline operated by LPN that has dealt with migrant worker rights promotion in Thailand for over 30 years.

The press statement said the hotline served as a tool to pass workers’ opinions, demands and recommendations to CP Foods, allowing the company to improve its treatment of workers.

“Labour Voices by LPN helps us learn about the labour-related issues that can be improved to appropriately meet workers’ demand, in line with the human rights doctrine and the company’s diversity policy,” Parisothat said.

CP Foods has made a continued effort to improve labour standards at workplace. All factories of the company are demanded to follow GLP and all have been awarded Thai Labour Standard by the Ministry of Labour.

Such effort is behind the goal to ensure best practices throughout the food industry’s supply chain. In this regard, Labour Voices by LPN assures all consumers across the world that CPF adopts fair and equal treatment of workers in line with international standards.

Meanwhile Sompong Srakaew, director of LPN, noted that the foundation has applied its experience and success in consulting migrant workers in Thailand to spread awareness among CPF’s workers of Labour Voices by LPN, which has been operational for two months. The workers are encouraged to make use of the centre, while LPN evaluates the understanding of workers in large and small groups and social media is being deployed to widen the access and establish trust among workers.

“Labour Voices by LPN” will be a synergised effort by the private sector and civil sector to lift workers’ quality of life and deal with labour issues in Thailand in a sustainable way,” Sompong said.

Shopee, the leading e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia and Taiwan, has officially launched ‘Shopee Mall’, a new dedicated portal featuring thousands of products sold by leading brands and Shopee’s top sellers, revealed the press statement.

The Mall will give users direct access to a variety of prominent brands such as Loreal, Unilever, Huawei, Nestle, Phillips and many more. All products on Shopee Mall come with 15 Days Return Policy, 100 per cent Authenticity Guarantee and Free Shipping nationwide.

Terence Pang, chief operating officer of Shopee said that following the tremendous growth of Shopee Thailand in the recent years, it has taken a major step to officially launch Shopee Mall as a way to cement our position as the one-stop shopping platform of choice in the market, and also to expand and diversify our product assortment to cater to users all across Thailand.

“Moving forward, Shopee will continue to establish more strategic partnerships with leading brands, and to work closely with them to further provide an unprecedented choice of products and services to enhance users’ overall shopping experience, and to drive forward the growth of Thailand’s e-commerce industry.”

The Mall was conceptualised to solve shoppers’ concerns about product authenticity, which is a major concern among buyers when shopping online. The newly launched portal caters to the demands of Thai shoppers where they can shop for their favorite brands and products from the brand owners themselves.

Additionally, with more Thai brands embracing e-commerce, Shopee Mall provides a platform for traditional brands and retailers to tap on to expand their digital presence, according to the statement.

This reflects Shopee’s commitment to constantly innovating and enhancing its platform, features, and services to adapt to the rapidly-changing e-commerce scene and consequently, the needs of users.

A premium online shopping environment

To identify the product listings, shoppers can look out for the distinctive red ‘Mall’ label while browsing. Shopee ensures a premium online shopping experience with the following benefits:

15 Days Return Policy: Shoppers can enjoy hassle-free returns within 15 days at zero cost for all Shopee Mall products.

100% Authenticity Guarantee: Serves to eliminate buyer concerns about product authenticity. Any shopper who receives a counterfeit product when purchasing from Shopee Mall is entitled to a 200% refund.

Free Shipping nationwide: Shoppers can enjoy greater cost savings with free shipping nationwide on every order, subject to a minimum spend of 200 baht.

Get ready for a series of super deals and promotions during Shopee Mall Grand Launch

During Shopee Mall Grand Launch campaign happening from 5 to 11 March, users can look forward to endless irresistible deals including multiple daily flash sales, discounts of up to 80% off, surprise voucher codes and up to 12% Shopee coins cashback across all product categories on Shopee.

Join the Shopee Mall Grand Launch celebration at shopee.co.th/shopeemall

For more information, visit shopee.co.th/ Download the Shopee app for free on Apple App Store or Google Play Store.

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It said the stand-alone rating was enhanced by KTZ’s current classification as a strategically important subsidiary of Krung Thai Bank (KTB), which owns a 50 per cent stake in KTZ.

The rating reflects KTZ’s market position in securities and derivatives brokerage, its presence in Indochina markets through its affiliated securities companies, its diversified revenue base, and both the business and financial supports it receives from KTB, it said.

The ratings are, however, constrained by KTZ’s weakening profitability, tight capital position and the intense competition squeezing brokerage commission rates.

He cited “solid results” in the past year and an effective force of sales agents, especially in the Unit Link market, for which the company trained more than 230 agents in the past year.

FWD has also renewed its partnership with TMB, initially for 15 years, and its alternative distribution channels saw 101 per cent growth over the previous year, Poramasiri said.