“This acquisition is an important milestone of [wholly-owned subsidiary] BPCG in expanding its growth platform toward its goal to become a regional renewable energy company,” president Chaiwat Kovavisarach said yesterday.

In its filing to the Stock Exchange of Thailand, Bangchak said BPCG had signed an agreement with SunEdison International and SunEdison Energy Holding (Singapore) to acquire all outstanding shares of SunEdison Japan Corporation, SunEdison Japan |Debt Financing and SunEdison TK Investor 1.

The transaction is in accordance with the company’s board of directors meeting on Thursday.

BPCG will buy the entire solar power plant business of SunEdison in Japan with total capacity of 198 megawatts.

SunEdison’s portfolio includes solar power plants in operation with total capacity of 13MW, solar plants under construction with total capacity of 27MW and projects under development with total capacity of up to 158MW.

“It follows Bangchak’s step last year when it stepped into the petroleum exploration and production business with the aims to help strengthen national energy security and diversify into new businesses to create continuity and sustainability for the enterprise,” Chaiwat said.

Bundit Sapianchai, managing director of BPCG, said the acquisition would enable the firm to have an important base in the region for expanding to other countries.

It also supports the firm’s plan to grow in preparation for its listing on the local stock exchange this year.

Hak said one of the main contributing factors for this was the emerging-market slowdown, particularly in China, which he labelled a new phenomenon.

Other major factors he cited as among the major causes included the collapse of prices for oil and gas and other commodities, and the weakening of global currencies.

The United States will be among the very few economies that will be an exception to this global slowdown phenomenon, he said.

Despite the gloomy outlook, Shin believes the Chinese economy will not have a feared hard landing.

He said the low-growth problems were compounded by “mega-events” such as geopolitical incidents that were unpredictable. As a result, he said companies had to improve their “responsiveness” and learn to operate in the “new reality”, such as over-capacity being a problem, particularly for multinational companies.

“Two key words: quickly and effectiveness. We have to become like a chameleon. Many companies will become history,” he said.

“Any company, small or big, cannot be complacent at this period.”

In a bid to cope better with the forecast prolonged slowdown, 3M has developed what it calls the “play book”, which is in essence “scenario planning” on how it will respond when a major event erupts.

The company’s diversified products, markets, and geographic portfolio will help it weather the current situation, he said.

“Healthcare, consumer, safety businesses are among [our businesses] that are still doing very well. Domestic-driven industries tend to do better in this period,” he said. “While people are not putting in new fibre-optic cable, they’re still going to hospitals.”

Hak said 3M executives considered themselves “portfolio managers” whose task was to make the right choices at the right time involving three dimensions – the product, market, and geographical portfolios. Given the current economic scenario, the US$31.8-billion (Bt1.1 trillion) company is investing in growth areas including Southeast Asia, he said.

And despite the challenging economic times, he said 3M was increasing its research and development budget.

“Since our current CEO assumed the post in 2012, he made a statement to increase R&D from 5.5 per cent to 6 per cent of sales. We’re following his statement,” Shin said.

“R&D and commercialisation are probably our main strategies to grow. We’re investing $1.8 billion every year in R&D,” he said.

Hak said Thailand was 3M’s biggest market in Southeast Asia, accounting for about 35 per cent of its sales in the region, which totalled about $1 billion annually.

Thailand is also one of 3M’s most “penetrated” markets in the world, as measured by the size of its business in the country versus the size of the economy. He said the company tried to replicate its success in Thailand to elsewhere.

The company appointed Napaporn Ratanasaenghirun as its first Thai managing director last November. Napaporn had previously led 3M Vietnam, where she doubled 3M sales during her three-year term. Hak said 3M Thailand had continued to outperform the economy, growing its business at a higher percentage than the growth of gross domestic product for many years. It plans for that to continue.

The trend has recently begun to pick up pace, given the implementation of the Asean Economic Community (AEC) at the turn of the last year.

Driven by the birth of 24 digital terrestrial-TV channels nearly two years ago, the Kingdom’s new TV broadcasters have been busy negotiating with local production houses and advertisers to select the right TV formats for their target audiences.

“International formats, both big and small, will continue to be popular among all broadcasters and sponsorship prices will also continue to increase due to heavy licensing and production costs,” media expert Pathamawan Sathaporn, the managing director of Mindshare Thailand, said recently.

However, she explained that while digital-TV channels were still heavily dependent on finished content from content owners across the globe, some TV broadcasters and content producers were now placing more emphasis on building local intellectual property for regional distribution, particularly now that the AEC was in place.

Noppakorn Thongman, founder of Entertainment Lab – a local production house – said that from his working experience with leading media production houses like Endemol and FrementleMedia, he understood that creating the right TV format meant long-term investment in monetising content copyright.

“I would like to work with local broadcasters to co-produce TV formats and my company would help distribute the format in overseas markets via Global Agency, the international content distributor,” he added.

Entertainment Lab has created its own game-show format called “Golden Scale”, which was broadcast last year via Thairath TV digital station.

Through Global Agency’s network, this new TV format has since been presented to potential prospects in Asia and the US, with distribution negotiations under way, Noppakorn said.

Entertainment Lab is also working with MCOT to co-create another game show called “ID Luck Number”, which is scheduled to be aired on MCOT’s Channel 9 next month.

Noppakorn added that this format was co-owned by his company and MCOT for global distribution.

“I want to encourage local broadcasters to be involved with this type of creative production, before taking those TV formats to overseas markets,” he said.

Izzet Pinto, chief executive officer of Global Agency, said his company had received a number of TV programme proposals from Thai production houses every year.

However, they tended to be paper-based projects, which were considered less attractive than projects that had already been screened, he added.

Meanwhile, Zense Entertainment chairman and CEO Varavuth Jentanakul said he and his company had reached a key milestone on the road to becoming a content producer for export.

“Since 2011, two years after our establishment, my team and I have been developing our own TV formats for export to neighbouring countries. We expect to export at least two programmes in Southeast Asia in the next two or three years,” he said.

Zense Entertainment’s own-format programmes are “Jedsarati”, a variety show; “Code Hunter”, a drama series; “Honeymoon Flight”, a variety talk show; and “Ban Praram 4”, a news variety show.

It has also created game shows such as “Horo Game” and “Asean Together”, and a situation comedy titled “Ha Company Unlimited”.

Workpoint Entertainment is also working on creating its own formats to offer to international distributors.

The company’s hot formats include “Fan Pan Tae” and “SME Tee Taek”.

He cited three main reasons for this.

“Firstly, more than 70 per cent of the population live in rural areas. Secondly, only 20-25 per cent of adults have bank accounts. Thirdly, Myanmar has a lot of infrastructure deficiencies. There are a lot of difficulties to access banking facilities and power shortages,” Shigeno said at the Mobile Money & E-Commerce Summit 2016 last week.

The draft of mobile financial service regulations was completed recently with the support of Japan’s Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (BTMU), KDDI and its local partner Myanmar Posts and Telecommunication (MPT), who are cooperating with BTMU to provide mobile money services in Myanmar.

According to Shigeno, many products will soon be available and the market is likely to evolve quickly.

MPT aims to provide mobile financial services in three phases, starting later this year. Initially, it will allow cash-in (deposit), peer-to-peer transfer, self airtime top-up, international remittances, and basic bill payment. In the second phase in 2017-2018, extensive merchant bills payment and links to mobile shopping will be introduced. In the third phase scheduled to start in 2019, saving products, basic loans and insurance products will be introduced.

Shigeno noted that service providers should not focus just on sales and signing customers up. Instead, they need to educate customers and incentivise regular usage. Agents must be trained for long-term success.

Strong agent network management is the “make or break” factor in the success of the mobile money business, he said.

Richard Buttenshaw, commercial director of ConnectNPay, noted that Myanmar needs to leapfrog in terms of technology.

“I see Myanmar as the last frontier for the telecommunication industry. As Myanmar is such an exciting market that we now have a chance to shape a future economy. We need to change the face of business and society for the better things to come,” he said.

Buttenshaw highlighted the need to ensure service providers in place and cooperate with Yangon City Development Committee (YCDC), as Yangon is a commercial hub. He also urged YCDC to widen its base. It currently has four departments.

Oo Thein Myint, chief compliance officer and deputy general manager of CB Bank, said in an earlier interview that mobile banking will become the most promising and popular service in the near future, as it is the most convenient for all users.

“Now almost everyone has at least one mobile phone. Some local banks such as CB and Aya Bank have implemented mobile banking,” he said.

CB Bank has built up an agent network to promote their services.