Green Earth Power (Thailand), or GEP, has appointed

Country Group said it is confident in GEP’s fundamentals and growth potential, and aims to file for the listing soon.

Aung Thiha, CEO of GEP, said the company plans on being a leader in clean and renewable energy, generating power commercially from a variety of clean sources including solar and wind to the public and private sectors, both domestically and internationally. The company’s investors are Scan Inter Plc (SCN), ECF Power Co Ltd as a subsidiary of East Coast Furnitech Plc (ECF), META Corporation Plc (META) and Noble Planet Pte Ltd (NP). Founded in 2011, GEP now has registered and paid-up capital of Bt215,755,800, divided into 2,157,558 common shares with par value of Bt100 per share.

The company currently manages the 220MW Minbu Solar Power Plant in Myanmar, established under a 30-year concession from the Myanmar government via a Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) agreement with a tariff rate of US$0.1275/KWh. Minbu is Myanmar’s first solar plant.

“The Minbu Solar Power Plant project is a large-scale project able to provide up to 350 million kWh/year or for up to 200,000 households, meeting increasing demand in the country where only 50 per cent of the population had access to electricity in 2019,” said GEP.

The company said it is developing other renewable energy projects, mostly in Myanmar, but is looking to expand throughout the region.

GEP recorded operational returns of Bt88.58 million in the first quarter of 2020. Revenue generation began in September 2019 as the Minbu plant’s first phase of 50MW installed capacity came online.

Littee Kitpipit, CEO of Scan Inter (SCN), said SCN took a 40 per cent stake in GEP to pioneer renewable energy development in Myanmar. As the country’s first solar plant, the Minbu project would also open doors to new opportunities for all energy businesses in the country, he said, adding that the project was highly stable and valuable since it was founded on the real energy demand of the nation rather than a means to create an image of clean and renewable energy. Such sustainable power needs will serve as a key factor in creating other business opportunities and support power supply security crucial to Myanmar’s economic development, said Littee.

He voiced confidence that Minbu Solar Power Plant would provide a strong return on investment for Scan Inter and its shareholders as well as incoming investors.

GEP is currently undergoing a financial and operational restructuring to meet regulations ahead of its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

“GEP has strong fundamentals and growth potential due to its knowledge, insights and capability of its management and previous experience in the energy sector. The business has seen consistent growth and raising fund through the stock exchange will propel its capability and opportunities, enabling it to compete and respond to the rapidly growing demands of the renewable energy business,” Veeraphat Phetcharakupt, director of Country Group Advisory, said.

On Thursday morning, Alex Berenson, a conservative-media favorite, tweeted to his more than 118,000 followers that Amazon banned his 6,400-word booklet. The booklet, “Unreported Truths about COVID-19 and Lockdowns: Part 1: Introduction and Death Counts and Estimates,” argues that the mainstream media is overstating the threat from the virus. Berenson dubbed them “Team Apocalypse.”

The tweet ricocheted around social media, retweeted more than 8,000 times. Musk retweeted it with a comment to his 35.6 million followers, calling the decision “insane.” He directed his comments to Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos, who owns The Washington Post.

“Time to break up Amazon. Monopolies are wrong!” Musk added.

Within a few hours, Amazon reversed itself, sending Berenson an email that it would publish the book after all. Amazon spokeswoman Sarah Elison said the book was removed in error. Initially, the company implied in an email to Berenson the decision related to concerns about coronavirus misinformation.

“Due to the rapidly changing nature of information around the COVID-19 virus, we are referring customers to official sources for health information about the virus. Please consider removing references to COVID-19 for this book,” Amazon digital publishing unit wrote.

The book criticizes decisions by politicians to shut down the economy, as well as the media coverage of those moves. Berenson writes that a new goal of reducing coronavirus deaths at any cost has taken root “as if deaths from COVID are the only kind of deaths or societal damage that matter.”

The spread of the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease covid-19, has slowed in recent days.

After Amazon decided to block the sales of the book, Berenson contemplated making “Unreported Truths” available on his website, he said. He is also in the process of creating an Apple publishing account to sell books in its e-book store. But he said Amazon’s initial decision would have eliminated a massive market for the booklet.

“Amazon dominates both the electronic and physical book markets, and if it denies its readers a chance to see my work, I will lose the chance to reach the people who most need to learn the truth – those who don’t already know it,” Berenson wrote in an emailed statement.

Berenson is not a scientist or a doctor. His primary credential is that he is a former New York Times reporter who worked for the publication from 1999 to 2010.

In February, Amazon began removing listings for products that made dubious claims about the novel coronavirus, stopping the sale of cleaning products that claimed to “kill” the virus. In March, the company took down pages offering digital books about the disease for sale, including one that trafficked in the conspiracy theory that the virus was human-made, according to a Wired article.

Decisions about publishing opinions with regard to the virus push Amazon into the culture wars that have recently roiled other tech giants such as Twitter, Facebook and Google. Last week, Twitter attached a fact-check label to tweets from President Donald Trump that falsely claimed that mail-in ballots are fraudulent. Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, meanwhile, defended his company’s decision to take no action on a Trump post regarding protests in Minneapolis last week that said “when the looting starts, shooting starts.”

In its original note to Berenson, Amazon cited its content policy. Those guidelines, listed on Amazon’s website, are broad. The company says it provides “our customers with access to a variety of viewpoints, including books that some customers may find objectionable.” But the company also notes that it reserves the right “to determine whether content provides a poor customer experience and remove that content from sale.”

There’s little doubt that some find Berenson’s work objectionable. Epidemiologists and other health-care professionals have challenged some of Berenson’s analysis made via his website, Twitter and on Fox News programs, particularly his criticism of coronavirus modeling and his claims that the U.S. health-care system is not under strain. Scientists also criticized his 2019 book, “Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence,” for exaggerating research that pot increases the risk of schizophrenia and other psychoses.

Prapas Kong-led, director general of the State Enterprise Policy Office, said on Thursday (June 4) that the airline is seeking government help after the Central Bankruptcy Court accepted its appeal for rehabilitation.

THAI also wants the government to look at its time slots in order to boost its competitiveness as well as that of its alliance airlines, said Prapas, who is also secretary of the government committee formed to follow up on the airline’s rehab plan.

The committee is chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam, who has said that THAI will not fly until the end of this month.

Prapas said the national carrier wants the government to coordinate negotiations where foreign creditors are concerned, as THAI wants them to accept its rehab plan under Thailand’s Bankruptcy Court.

The airline also wants the government to help negotiate financial dealings with other state enterprises, such as PTT and the Airports of Thailand. Now that the Finance Ministry has brought its stake in the airline to below 50 per cent, THAI has lost its state-enterprise status and wants to revise contracts it made with state agencies, Prapas said.

Meanwhile, Deputy Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Mananya Thaiset said the 86 savings cooperatives need to find common ground when it comes to the Bt43 billion that THAI owes them. Of the 86 cooperatives, 85 invested in the airline’s debentures and one bought shares.

The carrier owes a total debt of Bt300 billion, and if the cooperatives do not stick together, they may not get reasonable compensation as foreign creditors may take all of THAI’s assets, the minister warned.

BBS Joint Venture was chosen for the projects as it offered the highest returns to the state from among rival bids.

The BBS Joint Venture includes Bangkok Airways (which has a 45 per cent stake), BTS Group Holdings (35 per cent) and Sino-Thai Engineering and Construction (20 per cent).

On June 2, the Cabinet agreed with the result of the private-sector selection to join the project and assigned the EEC Policy Committee to sign the joint venture with the selected companies.

U-Tapao International Aviation Ltd, which has been established from the joint venture, is reportedly ready to sign the contract with the committee in June.