Once it has established itself as a regional brand and has branches throughout Southeast Asia, revenue from the Asean region should be 20-30 per cent of the total by 2020, he said.

The company recently expanded its KPN Academy franchise into Laos, as investors there wanted to bring this business into their country. Meanwhile, the company is negotiating with a private school in Indonesia on adding the KPN music programme to its curriculum. The business model in that case will be profit-sharing, he added.

He said many countries in the region lacked systematic music and voice training, so KPN saw an opportunity to build its brand, while businesspeople in those countries are also interested in KPN’s business model.

“We want to go China, but that market is not easy. Therefore, we will focus on Southeast Asia, especially Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam, which have similar cultures as Thailand,” he said.

In Thailand, KPN Music Academy has 60 branches, all run by franchisees. A franchisee will have costs from Bt3 million to Bt7 million, depending on the scale of the branch.

There are only two players in the music-academy business in Thailand, so marketing is not difficult. He said the company helps franchisees in terms of mass marketing via events and singing contests, while franchisees must handle local marketing themselves.

Courses at the academy cost around Bt3,000-Bt5,000 a month. Even though the economic slowdown has had an impact on purchasing power, parents continue to support their children’s ambitions to acquire musical skills, he said.

A key to the success of KPN franchises is that the franchisee has to share revenue with the teachers, which gives them incentive to stay with the academy long-term, he added.

To help the company spread its franchises throughout Thailand, Kasikornbank designed a loan programme for general investors interested in opening a KPN Academy.

Patchara Samalapa, executive vice president of KBank, said the bank had set aside Bt700 million for loans to KPN Music Academy franchisees.

If, for example, one wants to invest Bt6 million, the bank will offer a loan of Bt5.5 million and require collateral of 60 per cent of the loan amount.

A drill stem test was conducted with crude oil in the formations of Triassic Argilo Greseux Inferieur at the average crude oil flow of 6,152 barrels per day (bpd) and associated gas flow of 6.5 million standard cubic feet per day (mmscfd), and in formations of Ordovician (Ouargla Sandstone) with the average flow rates of crude oil at 302bpd and associated gas of 0.2mmscfd.

This well confirms the huge potential for BOG discovery.

“We are very satisfied with results of REZ-1bis. It marks a significant oil flow rate in the Hassi Bir Rekaiz project added up to the previous exploration campaigns,” Somporn Vongvuthi-|pornchai, president and CEO of PTTEP, said yesterday.

The exploration campaign in Hassi Bir Rekaiz started in 2014 and found both crude oil and associated gas in 10 exploration wells out of 11 wells totally.

The Hassi Bir Rekaiz field is located onshore in the eastern part of Algeria. It covers an area of 5,378 square metres.

PTTEP is the operator during the exploration period with a 24.5-per-cent interest.

Its joint venture partners are Sonatrach, the Algerian National Oil and Gas Company with 51-per-cent interest, and CNOOC, China’s largest producer of offshore crude oil and natural gas with 24.5-per-cent interest.

Besides Hassi Bir Rekaiz, PTTEP has another exploration and production project – Algeria 433a and 416b – which started oil production in the Bir Seba field last October with the rate of about 20,000bpd.

Thailand has been building up new industries focusing on technology and innovation, particularly a digital and creative economy, and Busan stands out in these capabilities. Busan is Asia’s largest international port city and is developing rapidly.

Somkid said special privileges would be provided for Korean investors who want to establish their businesses in Thailand’s new special economic zones, while the government would stand behind Thai investors initiating negotiations with Korean investors.

Yesterday, Somkid chaired a signing ceremony between the mayor of Busan and the governor of Phuket on an agreement for applying the development patterns of South Korea’s smart cities and digital technology for Phuket.

The City of Phuket has set a target to become a “new economy” by 2020, concentrating on environmental concerns, investment-friendliness, and tourist safety.

In one to two years, Phuket aims to have 2,000 closed-circuit TV cameras to monitor traffic so as to assess the cause of accidents and prevent them. Knowledge exchange for development of start-up operators will also be done in the city.

Information and Communications Technology Minister Uttama Savanayana said the Software Industry Promotion Agency (Sipa) was also participating in the development of Phuket with a Bt430-million budget to develop the infrastructure system for a smart city in the province.

Phuket will become part of the Internet of Things, using an IT network to switch lights in public areas on and off, connect information and distribute mobile-phone SIMs for foreign tourists to help them use services for improvement of the environment and safety.

Deputy Commerce Minister Suvit Maesincee said an incubation centre was being set up for new IT operators as a way to lower their costs. The centre will provide knowledge on legal issues, copyrights, sources of financing and joint investment with large private enterprises. The ministry decided to take this step after seeing South Korea’s experience in persuading big businesses like Samsung to help establish 17 incubators for small and large enterprises in the country.