Three stimulus packages are expected to generate about Bt70 billion in spending by in-country tourists, said Tourism Council of Thailand president Chairat Trirattanajarasporn.
The packages to stimulate domestic tourism, which are being rolled out with a whopping budget of Bt22.4 billion, were approved by the Cabinet on June 16. They will run for four months between July and October.
The Tiew Pan Suk (Trips to share happiness) package is designed to help transport businesses, from airlines to car rental firms. It will subsidise at least 2 million travellers by paying 40 per cent of their travel fares, not exceeding Bt1,000. The project will cost Bt2 billion.
The Rao Pai Tiew Gun (Let’s travel together) package will offer a 40-per-cent discount on accommodation costing up to Bt3,000 per night for a maximum of five nights. Recipients are required to travel outside their hometowns.
This package will also fill tourists’ e-wallets with Bt600 per night for a maximum of five nights, to be used to pay for tourism activities such as spa services, souvenirs and restaurants. The scheme, which will subsidise up to 5 million nights of stay, will cost Bt18 billion.
The Kum Lang Jai (Encouragement) package will reward about 1.2 million village health volunteers and subdistrict hospital staff for their work during the Covid-19 outbreak. It will offer a subsidy of Bt2,000 per person on travel costs for a minimum of two days. This scheme will cost the government Bt2.4 billion.
Tourism Council chief Chairat added that he wants the government to provide financial aid to small and medium-sized tourism operators, who are short of liquidity.
Thai Hotels Association president Supawan Tanomkietipume expects the travel mood to return in August following the launch of the three packages. She predicts this would boost the hotel occupancy rate nationwide to around 40 per cent from July to October – enough to keep hoteliers in business while they wait for the return of foreign travellers early next year.
Foreign tourists account for 60 per cent of the country’s tourism income.
The price of gold was unchanged in morning trade on Wednesday (June 17), the Gold Traders Association reported.
As of 9.25am, buying price of a gold bar was Bt25,350 per baht weight and selling price Bt25,450, while gold ornaments were priced at Bt24,892.72 and Bt25,950, respectively.
The Gold Spot Index price on Wednesday morning moved to around US$1,724 (Bt53,704) per ounce after the price rose by $9.3 to $1736.5 per ounce at close on Tuesday (June 16).
Investors bought gold as a safe haven asset after the US Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell warned that the US economy was still facing uncertainty from the Covid-19 outbreak. However, tensions in Korean peninsula would pressure the gold price.
The price in the Hong Kong gold market dropped by HK$40 to $15,970 (Bt64,191) per tael this morning.
MEA urges customers to use its e-bill services to cut Covid-19 risk and paper waste
Jun 17. 2020
By THE NATION
The Metropolitan Electricity Authority (MEA) is urging customers to use its e-bill service to receive electronic documents via either mobile phone or e-mail.
“The e-bill enables fast notification with no paper documents, reducing the need to come down to the MEA branch offices as well as the risk of contracting Covid-19 virus via touching papers,” the MEA posted on Tuesday (June 16) on its Facebook page @Metropolitan.Electricity.Authority.
The MEA e-bill will cover the following services: e-invoice for monthly power bill; e-receipt/e-tax invoice; e-notification (reminder to pay power bill)
“Furthermore, using e-paper will help save the environment by reducing the use of paper,” said the post. “For every customer that registers for e-bill services, the MEA will donate for the planting of one tree in mangrove forests in Samut Prakarn province under the Pluk Pa Chalerm Phra Kiat [forest planting in honour of King Rama X] campaign.”
For more information on MEA services, contact call centre 1130, twitter: @MEA_news, Line: @meathailand, facebook: @Metropolitan.Electricity.Authority or download the mobile application “MEA Smart Life”, available for both Android and iOS users.
Index Living Mall refreshes Ekamai branch to cater to new urban lifestyle
Jun 16. 2020
By THE NATION
Introduces new zones and new items in ‘Fresh-up Ekamai, Lift-up Your Life’ concept to attract Thai and expat customers living in city center.
Index Living Mall Public Company Limited has renovated its Ekamai branch in recognition of the potential of its location and to fulfill the lifestyle demand of the urbanites. The Company added new zones and new items under the “Fresh-up Ekamai, Lift-up Your Life” concept with the aim to create a new experience to fulfill the desire of both Thai and foreign customers who were shopping for furniture and decorations for homes and condominium units both for own domicile and for rent – with sets of items such as the ‘Condo Complete Set’ in Hi-end or Urban styles.
Miss Kridchanok Patamasatayasonthi, Managing Director of Index Living Mall Public Company Limited (ILM), Thailand’s leading integrated retailer of home furnishings, revealed that the Company has renovated and redecorated the Index Living Mall Ekamai branch to better cater to the demand of the consumers living in the area. This is because the Ekamai neighborhood is considered to be a business district as well as a mid-city residential area where many real estate developers have jumped in to develop a large variety of real estate projects such as condominiums, hotels, and office buildings for rent. Also, this zone is surrounded by international schools, hospitals, shopping malls as well as convenient transportation routes linking Sukhumvit Road and Soi Thong Lo, and adjacent to the BTS commuter train line. Therefore, Ekamai has become a popular residential neighborhood especially in regard to condominium units for rent to Thais and foreigners. And that in turn has spurred the growth of needs to shop for furniture, household items, home decoration, as well as electrical appliances.
A survey carried out on the behavior and interests of Index Living Mall customers in Ekamai area showed 80 percent of Joy Card members are Thai and 20 percent foreigners. While walk-in customers who are not members are also interested to purchase home decorations and decorative sets for condominium that included furniture, home decoration and electrical appliances. The clientele can be divided into two groups – one is the high-end group who would choose luxurious, stylish, and high quality items to decorate their own homes or condominium units. The other group is the economy shoppers who would look for items to decorate the condominium units to be rented out. So, they would look for complete sets of merchandise that will satisfy their tenants who can start their lives in these condominium units with just a suitcase-full of clothes. This group of customers would need items that are well within their specific budget to decorate studio and 1-bedroom units that can earn them rent of about 20,000-50,000 baht per month.
Index Living Mall Ekamai branch has been freshened under the “Fresh-up Ekamai, Lift-up Your Life” concept with new zones and new items, particularly furniture and decorative items designed specifically for condominium living, including furniture sets for bedroom, living room and dining room that are compact in size suitable for limited spaces but with complete functionality. Index Living Mall also have an in-house team of designer-specialists who can provide consultation in choosing the right furniture that suits the customers’ needs while offering free interior design service. Furniture items are available both as built-in and stand-alone.
The ‘new zone, new items’ feature the newest innovative “ITAL Smart” wardrobes that are much more just wardrobes, with fully adaptable functions either with racks for clothes or cabinets and equipped with LED lights, sensors and soft-touch drawers. Also available is premium “Italiving”furniture imported from Italy. “The Condo Collection” zone features furniture designed specifically for condominiums with perfect combination of design and function for storage in which every nook and cranny is fully utilized. Feel free to peruse show units with sizes starting from 20 square meters. In “Younique” zone, you may order customized furniture exactly the way you like it. In the “Sofa & Recliner Exhibition” zone, sofas in a large variety of designs are on view. The “Outdoor Life” zone offers decorative trees and plants in varying designs to add green to your house. Last but not least, the “Storage Solutions & Home Organization”zone houses a collection of storage solutions that will help to keep your houses tidy and orderly.
In addition, there are the popular mainstay brands such as Index Furniture, Winner Furniture, Logica office furniture, Power One modern home electrical appliances and many other household items and home decorations. Fulfill your lives to perfection with “Lift-up Your Life” in the modern atmosphere in the branch that provides pleasant shade, warmth and friendliness to enhance the inspiration for home decoration with a display of merchandise such as tableware, cutlery and kitchenware to match up with the dining room furniture, etc. Also new is the co-working space corner designed to cater for the lifestyle the new generation of urbanites who can work anywhere.
Visit the new-look Index Living Mall Ekamai branch to choose items that you have always dreamt of (2nd floor BigC Ekamai).
By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Brendan Murray · BUSINESS
Corporate executives surveying the damage from their bruised supply chains are hearing lessons from the past about the risks of waiting too long to change.
In the Great Recession of 2007-09, banks and other financial institutions became the Achilles’ heel of a global economy that needed immediate reinforcements from bailouts to capital injections, eventually requiring thicker buffers of government regulation and supervision.
Now, in the early months of the covid-19 pandemic, global supply chains are drawing parallels to the financial companies of 12 years ago — crippled by an unexpected shock, exposed by flaws in their sophisticated instruments, second-guessed for pushing the public close to panic, diagnosed for a once-in-a-generation overhaul.
Some of the first advice on repairs comes from Michigan State University, the nation’s top school for supply-chain management. In a new discussion paper co-written by MSU Professor Steven Melnyk and Simon Knowles, chief marketing officer at the global supply-chain and operations consultancy Maine Pointe, the authors argue corporate boards that postpone dealing with weak supplier links will be the losers.
“The winners will be those firms who are willing to make investments now — when demand is down — in preparation for future growth,” Melnyk said in a response to emailed questions about the paper. “Once the economy recovers, firms will not be able to make these changes because they will be too busy meeting demand.
Just how quickly should corporate boards act to identify problems and come up with a plan to fix them?
By October, the authors recommend.
That’s because the pandemic highlighted how little flexibility most companies had to deal with large variations in demand — a sudden surge in the need for consumer products like antibacterial soap and toilet paper, or an abrupt end to purchases of goods like cars or furniture.
“The current problems do not mean supply-chain management is dead and must be replaced” and “nor should it be interpreted as a condemnation of globalization,” according to the paper. “Supply-chain management is right, but whether or not we have the right model in place with the right balance between global and domestic and the right emphasis — cost versus responsiveness and sustainability — these are the critical questions.”
Some other things the authors suggest to keep in mind:
– Whether it’s Brexit or the U.S.-China tariff war, politics has become the driving force over economics, and according to the paper, “free trade will likely shift to managed free trade.”
– Pure economics – where speed and low costs reign, and safety is a given – is no longer the main consideration. Safety, durability and sustainability rise in importance.
– Technology will advance at an even faster pace, with 3-D printing and advanced data helping to bring production closer to home.
– Many small suppliers won’t survive, requiring new relationships and a rebalancing of risks. In that environment, “cost is not king anymore.”
In the meantime, Knowles says that once companies stabilize their supply chains and recover from the disruptions, a rebalancing stage should follow. The speed at which companies get through each phase “will determine how well prepared they are for the winter and beyond,” he said.
One big difference between the global financial crisis and the current one: Governments aren’t rushing in with handouts for private-sector supply chains. Countries from Japan to India to the U.S. and Germany are, however, talking about introducing incentives like tax breaks and subsidies to encourage firms move production closer to home, particularly for medical supplies and drugs.
In Washington, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has railed against decades of globalization in which companies had a “fixation on efficiency” and expanded their networks of overseas suppliers on the advice of consulting firms.
Now he and the consultants sound a little closer to agreeing about the risks the coronavirus has introduced.
“Overextended supply chains increase the risk of economic contagion when a single link in the chain is broken. Even before the crisis reached American shores, many U.S. companies were feeling the effects of China’s economic shutdown,” Lighthizer wrote in an article in the latest edition Foreign Affairs magazine. “As companies prepare to reopen their U.S. operations, many still can’t produce what they want, since their overseas suppliers do not yet have government permission to reopen.”
By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Manuel Baigorri · BUSINESS, US-GLOBAL-MARKETS
Chinese companies are ditching their U.S. listings at the fastest pace since 2015 as they grapple with rising tensions between Beijing and Washington.
The latest is China’s biggest online classified firm 58.com, which on Monday agreed to a buyout deal led by private equity firms Warburg Pincus and General Atlantic. An investor group backed by Chinese tech tycoon Pony Ma’s Tencent Holdings said last week it will take Bitauto Holdings private in a deal valuing the car-listing website at $1.1 billion.
So far this year, U.S.-listed Chinese companies have announced four go-private deals with a combined value of $8.1 billion including debt, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s up from zero during the same period last year. It’s also the highest value for any full year since 2015, when $29.8 billion of such buyouts were announced.
The uptick comes as President Donald Trump weighs tighter scrutiny on Chinese companies after a string of accounting scandals including Luckin Coffee that have burned some of Wall Street’s biggest names. Nasdaq is planning new rules that would make initial public offerings more difficult for some Chinese firms, potentially curtailing their access to the world’s biggest capital market.
The covid-19 pandemic has also made some U.S.-listed Chinese companies look relatively undervalued, according to Steven Tran, a Hong Kong-based partner at law firm Mayer Brown.
“Add in the generally negative sentiment in the U.S. on all things China-related and you have the perfect recipe for an increase in take-private transactions,” he said.
A consortium including buyout firm Centurium Capital in September made a non-binding offer to take China Biologic Products private. A deal could value the U.S.-listed biotech company at about $4.6 billion. Negotiations on a potential transaction have reached their final stages, people with knowledge of the matter have said.
New York-listed China Distance Education said earlier this month it received a preliminary take-private proposal from its senior management.
“The accelerated traction of Chinese companies listed in the U.S. looking to go private relates to their outlook in weighing the advantages and disadvantages of maintaining a U.S. listing status, particularly compliance costs and legal risks,” said Christopher Ma, a consultant at law firm Simmons & Simmons in Hong Kong.
Growing tensions between Beijing and Washington are also prompting increasing numbers of U.S.-listed Chinese firms to consider alternative venues to sell shares. So far Hong Kong is the favored destination for secondary listings, with NetEase and JD.com being the latest to raise money there. In China, the securities regulator is accelerating a shake-up that could streamline applications process for initial public offerings.
58.com may eventually seek a listing in China after completing the privatization later this year, according to Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Vey-Sern Ling and Tiffany Tam. Such a move could see the company follow the footsteps of firms that had returned to mainland China after delisting in the U.S., such as Focus Media Information Technology.
“Once privatized, these Chinese companies and their new owners will no doubt be pivoting towards Hong Kong and the mainland if a future relisting is ever on the cards again,” said Mayer Brown’s Tran.
The shares of Com7 Plc, a leading supplier of IT products, have rebounded significantly at Bt29.75 per share from the lowest point of Bt13.20 per cent.
Com7 shares dropped sharply in April as most of its shops had to be temporarily closed in line with the government’s lockdown measures imposed to curb the spread of Covid-19.
Chief executive officer Sura Kanittaweekul said the company’s overall situation improved as soon as the government allowed shops to reopen, and the demand for its products also rose.
“Hence, we expect the company’s situation to return to normal by the end of July,” he said. “The company has gained positive sentiment from a rising demand for IT products as many consumers have to work from home during this time.”
He added that Com7 will also focus on expanding sale via online channels, adding that online sales had risen by 400 per cent, especially for laptops and tablets, as most people have had to work from home.
“Though the profit margin is no different from sales via stores, online channels do help expand the customer base and enable the company to manage inventory effectively,” he said.
“Meanwhile, the company will also allow corporate customers to take notebooks on lease.”
Sura added that the company will also monitor sales in the second half to see if it will help compensate for the losses made in the first quarter.
Com7 has experienced continuous growth from 2016 to 2019.
Its revenue and net profit in 2016 were Bt17.2 billion and Bt406.55 million respectively, in 2017 Bt22.5 billion and Bt608.77 million, in 2018 Bt27.9 billion and Bt891.06 million, in 2019 Bt33.4 billion and Bt1.21 billion, and in the first quarter of this year, Bt8.19 billion and Bt287.88 million.
The Stock Exchange of Thailand Index dropped by 8.00 points, or 0.59 per cent, to 1,359.13 on Wednesday morning (June 17).
A stock analyst at Krungsri Securities expected the index to fluctuate between 1,360 and 1,380 before falling.
“The market gained positive sentiment from the US retail sales in May increasing by 17.7 per cent, while the US government prepared to spend US$1 trillion on infrastructure to stimulate the economy,” he said.
“In addition, energy stocks gained positive sentiment from rising crude oil price after the International Energy Agency raised its oil demand forecast for this year to 91.7 million barrels per day in response to several countries easing lockdowns.”
The analyst said that the index, however, would be under pressure from tight SET valuations and uncertainty following the second wave of Covid-19 caaes in many countries, such as US, China, and Japan.
He recommended investors to buy:
▪ Energy stocks that benefit from the rising crude oil price, such as PTT, PTTEP, TOP, PTTGC, IRPC, SPRC, and IVL.
▪ Stocks whose second-quarter performance will improve, such as CKP, TASCO, STA and RS.
▪ Stocks that benefit from the Cabinet’s three tourism stimulus packages, such as MINT, CENTEL, ERW and AOT.
The SET Index rose sharply by 25 points on Tuesday, or 1.87 per cent, closing at 1,367. Total transactions were worth Bt68 billion.
Net buy by foreign investors amounted to Bt423 million in stocks, while net sale of bonds was Bt626 million. There were 9,109 net short TFEX SET50 contracts.
The baht opened at 31.12 to the US dollar this morning (June 17), unchanged from its previous close.
The Thai currency is expected to move between 31.00 and 31.20 today, said Jitipol Puksamatanan, head of Markets Strategy at SCB Securities.
The US foreign exchange market gained positive sentiment from the US economic recovery after retail sales in May recovered by 17.7 per cent month on month.
The S&P 500 rose for three consecutive days by 1.9 per cent, while Euro Stoxx 50 increased by 2.9 per cent. US Ten-Year Treasury bonds, meanwhile, rose by three basis points to 0.75 per cent.
The Asian foreign exchange market is currently under pressure from uncertainty following the fresh wave of Covid-19 cases in Beijing and Tokyo, causing the dollar to strengthen compared to other currencies by approximately 0.2 per cent, Jitipol said.
The baht also weakened due to uncertainty among foreign investors about the impact on their Asian operations from the new Covid-19 outbreak.
In addition, problems between countries in the Asian region may slow the recovery of the baht, Jitipol added.
By The Washington Post · Abha Bhattarai, Rachel Siegel · BUSINESS, RETAIL
Shoppers bought clothing, furniture and sports equipment fueling a record spike in retail sales up 17.7% in May, in the latest sign that the economy could be beginning to recover from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
The strong retail report out Tuesday sent stocks surging and earned praise from President Donald Trump on Twitter: “Wow! May retail sales show biggest one-month increase of ALL TIME, up 17.7%. Far bigger than projected. Looks like a BIG DAY FOR THE STOCK MARKET, AND JOBS!”
Yet, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warned on Tuesday that the economic road ahead remains long and uncertain with 20 million jobs lost since February, a reported unemployment rate at 13.3%, the highest level since the Great Depression, and $6.5 trillion in household wealth gone in the first quarter. Even with improved retail numbers, overall levels are still down nearly 8% compared with February.
“Significant uncertainty remains about the timing and strength of the recovery,” Powell told a Senate banking panel. “Until the public is confident that the disease is contained, a full recovery is unlikely,” he added.
The speed and degree to which the economy recovers portends high political stakes this fall. Trump plans to make these signs of an economic recovery front and center in his political campaign, while Joe Biden plans to sharpen attacks on Trump’s handling of the crisis, emphasizing the heavy toll on workers.
Spending rose across all categories in May, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday. Sales at clothing stores nearly tripled from a month earlier. Some of the largest gains were at furniture stores, where sales rose 90%, and at sporting goods, musical instrument and book stores where they grew 88%. Sales in electronics and appliance retailers were up 51%. Restaurants and bars, meanwhile, notched a 29% increase in sales, while online sales rose 9%.
The monthly jump in retail sales sent markets soaring. The Dow Jones industrial average surged more than 3% at its open, but scaled back its gains to 2%, as investors cheered the retail sales, as well as news of a possible medical treatment for covid-19. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index closed up 1.9%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite closed up 1.75%.
Yet, economists continue to warn that the economy remains on shaky ground. Powell on Tuesday emphasized that both the public health crisis and recession have unevenly targeted the country’s lowest-income households, noting that some of the jobs lost to this economic crisis could be gone forever.
“The longer the downturn lasts, the greater the potential for longer-term damage from permanent job loss and business closures,” he said to the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee Tuesday morning. “Long periods of unemployment can erode workers’ skills and hurt their future job prospects.”
Service-sector jobs in retail and hospitality were among the first to go when the pandemic hit. But the impact has cascaded into white-collar industries in recent weeks, with major airlines and professional services firms announcing fresh rounds of layoffs. Economists say it could take years for retailers and shoppers to bounce back from the economic devastation of the ongoing pandemic.
“It is too early to celebrate,” economist Diane Swonk, wrote in a note to clients on Tuesday. “Stimulus checks, along with enhanced unemployment benefits, helped many to weather the shutdowns, but food lines lengthened as only about half of renters were confident they could pay rent in May. High-end consumers were much more confident as their stock portfolios rallied. They also may be feeling a false sense of security in their jobs.”
The May bounce in retail sales follows two months of record-breaking declines, as Americans abruptly pulled back on discretionary spending. Retail sales fell 8.3% in March, and 14.7% in April, which is a revised figure.
“We’re seeing some rebound, but overall these are still … low numbers,” said Andrew Lipsman, a retail analyst for market research firm eMarketer. “The reality is, we still have high unemployment numbers, and despite the feel-good momentum of the last month, the consumer economy is still not on very strong footing.”
A number of national chains – including Nordstrom, Gap and Macy’s – reopened their stores last month with new safety measures and curbside pickup options. Retailers say shoppers have begun trickling back, albeit cautiously. Although spending at clothing stores jumped 188% in May, overall sales are still down 63% from a year ago.
At Adeline, a women’s clothing boutique in Dallas, sales have been steadily rising since reopening the first week of May, with shoppers stocking up on summer clothing and dresses for graduation parties.
“The first couple of weeks after we reopened were slow, but it keeps picking up as the weeks go by,” said owner Graeme Gehring. “Now we’re super busy every day. People are excited to buy cute clothes.”
Consumer spending, which typically drives 70% of the nation’s economy, has dropped sharply in recent months. Americans spent nearly 14% less in April than they did in March, one of the steepest declines on record, according to Commerce Department data.
The pandemic has also hastened a wave of retail bankruptcies, with iconic chains such as J. Crew, Neiman Marcus and J.C. Penney filing for Chapter 11 protection in May.
“The disruption caused by the pandemic has done strange things to our perception of numbers,” Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail, wrote in a note to clients. “Usually, a 7.7% year-over-year decline in retail sales would be an unmitigated disaster – but in the context of everything that is going on, the outcome is palatable.”
Some 20 million Americans are still without jobs. Even though U.S. employers added 2.5 million jobs in May, economists say ongoing uncertainties about the public health crisis and the economy have made it difficult to know when consumers and businesses might return to spending levels more common in the past few years.
Pool company American Sale shuttered all eight of its Chicago-area locations in late March. By the time it reopened in early May, demand for pools, hot tubs, trampolines and swing sets was booming. Sales are up about 30% from a year ago.
“Business has jumped considerably,” said Bob Jones, the company’s president. “During the lockdown, you had all of these people at home, saying ‘I’m not traveling or taking vacations. What can I do instead?'”
He said stimulus checks helped prop up many households, at least temporarily. But the looming uncertainty also has many business owners worried about how the coming months could play out.
“The numbers are improving because of staged reopenings around the country, but the economy will remain soft for some period of time,” said Brian Marks, an economist and senior lecturer at the University of New Haven. “People need to have trust, confidence and faith – both in the economy and in monitoring and testing (of the coronavirus), social distancing and, ultimately, a vaccine. But we’re not there yet.”
In all, consumers spent $485.5 billion in May on retail goods, groceries and gas. And 17% of sales -$86.4 billion – were purchased online.
E-commerce, which is up 31% from a year ago, has emerged as a bright spot during the pandemic, as homebound Americans turn to the internet for groceries, books, furniture and other discretionary goods. Although online shopping has been on the rise for years, analysts say the recent lockdown orders have sped up the process, resulting in long-term shifts in how and where people shop. Online sales at Target have more than doubled during the pandemic, with e-commerce growing 282% in April alone.
“We’ve just seen Cyber Monday occur almost every day except the volume is twice the size,” Target chief executive Brian Cornell told investors last month.
File photo
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell
