One of the reasons Chinese products keep flowing into Thailand, aside from their cheap prices, is the government’s policies such as the Eastern Economic Corridor project (EEC) and tax privileges. The government wants to attract capital from foreign countries, it also allows foreign products, especially from China, to enter the country easily.

Government measures sought

Pawoot Pongvitayapanu of the Thai e-Commerce Association, who has been in the e-Commerce business for years, said Chinese e-commerce investors, especially those in the ECC are now allowed to invest in infrastructure. Previously, foreign companies set up factories and hired local operators while Chinese investors rented space in Thailand to stock export products under the Free Trade Zone agreement for distribution in country and other Asean nations.

Pawoot said he recently had a talk with Kanit Sangsubhan, secretary-general of the EEC Office, and was told that the EEC office is planning to send more Thai products to the Chinese market which will benefit Thai manufacturers.

He said the Revenue Department is adjusting the tax structure on foreign products sold in Thailand. They will be taxed from the first baht. The prices of goods ordered from abroad will be collected 7 per cent VAT from the first baht. If Thailand doesn’t have any protective measure against the invasion of foreign goods online, the country will see a trade deficit with China, affecting a wide range of retail businesses nationwide including the production sector

Chinese products top market

Chinese products account for 60 to 70 per cent of sales on Thai e-commerce platforms and 20-30 per cent in total sales to foreign countries.

“I collected data from Lazada website on October 11, divided by category and origin of the product, and found that there were 41.77 trillion products on Lazada, comprising 21.99 trillion of domestic products or 52.65 per cent, and 18.65 trillion of Chinese products or 44.65 per cent, which was a significant share while not many products from other countries were available,” said Pawoot.

Some categories have a large numbers of Chinese products such as shoes, watches, luggage, sports equipment. There are 60-70 per cent of Chinese products in the infant, smart device and toy categories. Among IT products or gadgets, especially on Lazada, products from China account for over half of the total.

After the opening of ECC, these products will be distributed more quickly.

However, consumers will pay less. What will be missing is the middleman who buys Chinese products for sale. The first batch of products to be affected are gadgets manufactured in China which carry cheaper prices since they come directly from the factory. There is also a dark side as fake items have been found among cosmetic products.

Thailand may lose Bt50 billion

“When China has a direct delivery channel and dumps millions of products into Thai hands in just a few days. I personally predicted that this year, Thais will order products through Lazada worth over Bt1 billion. By 2020, it is expected to be over Bt10 billion, or with an average growth rate of 30 per cent per year, and within 5 years, Thais will buy Chinese products through Lazada up to Bt50 billion,” Pawoott said.

For Thai traders, the chance of competition is rather small. Entrepreneurs must try to look for other products and create their own brand in order to compete with these Chinese products.

Entrepreneurs should adapt

At the same time, Thai businessmean should not rely on any platform but balancing ports and analysing for positive channels. They also need to self-collect customer information and start marketing with those customers without going through anyone, be it marketplace or social media. The merchant should own channels which he can manage hinself.

Thai e-commerce is currently growing although E-Market Place in Thailand has died since nobody can fight Lazada or Shopee. However, there is still another segment that still has potential, living on the side of social commerce – Merchants who sell and interact with customers on Facebook and LINE. Looking deeper into certain categories such as supplements, consumer products, or beauty products, Chinese products have not penetrated the market yet because of certian problems with the FDA

Research found that Thailand is the leader of the social e-commerce market, with a 40 per cent growth rate a year, outpacing all nations in the world.

Thanawat Malabuppha, president of the Thai E-Commerce Association, said the Thai online market grew 30 per cent a year, with an annual value of Bt200 billion.

According to Priceza, a shopping search engine, SMEs and start-up business should penetrate into the online market which are social media 40 per cent, E Market Place 35 per cent, and E-Tailers or Brands website 25 per cent, with the most popular products being maternal and child products, health, beauty, fashion, clothing and electronic products, among others.

Borderless online commerce will begin to play a major role which could be seen from the number of Chinese products. According to data from three marketplaces in Thailand, this year the number of products has increased by 174 million per cent, with 77 per cent in Chinese products.

Control on Chinese products

Online traders need to know that at present, 80 per cent of the competitors of the same product are not based in the country, so there must be a direct way to sell products to customers while the Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) market is still developing. Currently, the Indonesian market is as attractive as Vietnam since it is a big market but a local partner is needed.

Startups that invest in new products will find it difficult to compete amid the invasion of Chinese product. They must have a clear strategy for certain group. At the same time, the government should have measures to prevent Chinese goods from spilling in including encouraging startup investments, such as exempting tax for small traders.

“The e-commerce market has grown a lot since it’s easy to access and fast. The most popular products are fashion, beauty, electronics devices, and smartphones. The only concern is the overflow of products from China. The government must take action and protect entrepreneurs before drowning in Chinese products” Pawoot said.

The S&P 500 Index slipped but held onto a 28% gain for the year. Trading volume was almost 40% below the 30-day average, with equities trading ending at 1 p.m. in New York. Boeing Co. dropped 1.4% after rallying Monday, when the troubled planemaker announced a leadership change. Shares were little changed in London, Paris and Madrid. Markets in Germany and Italy were closed, anticipating Wednesday’s holiday that will shutter exchanges on both sides of the Atlantic.

A gauge of emerging-market shares fell. The 10-year Treasury yield hit 1.95% before falling back to 1.90%. West Texas oil climbed toward $61 a barrel. Precious metal futures were mostly higher.

“What’s going on this week is capitulation and by capitulation I mean money is coming into the market,” Andrew Slimmon, senior portfolio manager at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, said by phone. “Markets have had an incredible run, you have to start to wonder if it’s getting very overbought and what could cause a pause or reversal in the market, which is not to say the run is over.”

Along with the holiday calm, several asset classes are holding on the extraordinary advances they’ve notched in 2019. The $45 trillion MSCI World Index is maintaining a 25% year-to-date surge that augurs its top performance in a decade. Gold advanced, on track for its best year since 2010, as mixed U.S. data Monday kept hopes of interest-rate cuts alive.

Elsewhere, the dollar pared earlier gains against its major peers and headed for a monthly decline. The pound reversed earlier declines.

In Asia trading, equities ended little changed in Tokyo on thin volume, while they dipped in Seoul. Shanghai recovered some of Monday’s slide that came after a sell-off in tech companies.

Here are some events to watch for this week:

– Many nations’ stock markets are closed Wednesday for Christmas. Australia, Canada, Germany and U.K. markets also shut on Dec. 26.

– U.S. jobless claims on Thursday.

– Japan retail sales and industrial production are scheduled for Friday.

These are the main moves in markets:

Stocks

– The S&P 500 Index fell less than 0.1% as of 1:00 p.m. New York time.

– The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.1%.

– The MSCI Asia Pacific Index dipped 0.1%.

– The MSCI World Index was little changed.

Currencies

– The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed.

– The British pound rose 0.1% to $1.2952.

– The euro declined 0.1% to $1.1081.

– The Japanese yen was little changed at 109.39 per dollar.

Bonds

– The yield on 10-year Treasuries fell three basis points to 1.90%.

– Germany’s 10-year yield gained one basis point to -0.24%.

– Italy’s 10-year yield rose two basis points to 1.43%.

Commodities

– West Texas Intermediate crude increased 0.8% to $60.99 a barrel.

– Gold futures climbed 1.1% to $1,504.30 an ounce.

– Silver rose 0.8% to $17.59 per ounce.

The expansion is the lowest in 14 years, UTCC president Sauwanee Thairungroj said on Tuesday (December 24).

The university conducted the survey on 1,223 respondents.

Bt11 billion is expected to be spent on parties, Bt9.61 billion on merit making, Bt17.43 billion purchasing consumer products, Bt1.16 billion on luxury products, Bt60.44 billion on domestic travel and Bt35.84 billion on overseas trips.

The low expansion reflects Thais’ cautious spending due to their concern over a softening economy, said Thanawan Polvichai, director of the UTCC Centre for Business and Economic Forecasting.

“The Internet was never designed to be secure,” said Alan Brill, managing director of the cyber risk practice at Kroll, a New York-based consulting firm. But retailers and law enforcement experts say there are certain things you can do to protect yourself – and your bank account. Here are five suggestions.

1. Triple-check the URL

First things first: Look at the address at the top of the page, says Craig Williams, outreach director of Cisco Talos, which is Cisco’s security arm. Today’s consumers are increasingly finding products through social media posts and ads, which means you’ve got to be vigilant to ensure you’re on an authentic site.

Keep an eye out for websites that may be posing as mainstream sites. “We’re seeing more domains of varying legitimacy,” Williams said. “Maybe there’s a typo in the name, or a number instead of a letter, or a vowel missing here or there.” All of those, he said, are red flags.

And although shoppers are more comfortable buying from new and unheard-of sites, experts say a completely nonsensical URL may be a sign that a retailer isn’t exactly what it says it is.

2. Read the reviews and run an image search

Phony merchants are increasingly populating their sites with high-quality images they’ve lifted from upscale websites or fashion magazines. That means the leather jacket being advertised for $25 could easily cost 100 times as much.

So do your homework: Read the reviews (but keep in mind that they, too, can be doctored or deleted). Do a quick online search for the seller or URL, too, to check whether there have been complaints about fraud or counterfeits.

A reverse image search on an engine like Google can help turn up the original source of a photograph, says Gabriel Openshaw, vice president of e-commerce for Overland Sheepskin, who says the technique has helped the family-run business identify hundreds of websites that are using its copyrighted images. And although fraudulent sites have become more sophisticated in how they repurpose stolen photos – by altering the background, perhaps, or replacing a model’s face with someone else’s – he says it’s worth a try.

3. Use a credit card or PayPal

“The most dangerous thing you can do is use a debit card, which opens up your entire bank account to the bad guys,” Brill said.

Instead, he says, pay for online purchases with credit cards or services like PayPal, Apple Pay or Samsung Pay, which offer an extra layer of protection.

But if you do end up falling victim, Williams recommends contacting the merchant for a refund. If that doesn’t work, he says, it’s time to call your credit card company.

“Get the charge removed, and ask for a new card,” he said. “That second step is very important. You don’t know who you’ve given your personal information to.”

4. When in doubt, use a unique credit card number

More credit cards, including those issued by Apple, Bank of America and Capital One, now offer temporary numbers that can be set to expire once a purchase is complete. These unique numbers are a good way to prevent fraudsters from charging unauthorized purchases to your card, according to Williams.

“If you’re dead set on giving your personal information to a site you don’t know, this is the way to do it,” he said.

5. If a deal seems too good to be true . . .

The holiday shopping season is full of never-ending deals and deep discounts. But Williams says you should remain vigilant: “Even on Black Friday or Cyber Monday, you’re not going to get a $2,000 purse for $20,” he said.

Consumers can protect themselves, he and others said, by comparing prices with those on other websites. And, when all else fails, they said: Use common sense.

“The Internet may be a lot of things, but it is not the home of miracles,” Brill said. “If you’re looking for a toy that’s sold out at all major retailers and suddenly this site you’ve never heard of says it has it – that’s something to worry about.”

Their agreement allows for “the resumption of oil production from the joint fields,” the Saudi energy ministry said on Twitter. The oil fields in the so-called neutral zone can produce as much as 500,000 barrels a day — more than each of OPEC’s three smallest members pumped last month.

Chevron Corp., which operates the area’s Wafra field together with Kuwait Gulf Oil Co., expects full production there to be restored within 12 months, it said Tuesday in a statement. Wafra has been shut down since May 2015.

A resumption is unlikely to add oil to the market because Saudi Arabia and Kuwait both adhere to production limits that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries extended into March. Even so, the agreement to re-start the fields could weigh on market sentiment amid concerns about faltering growth in world demand and rising supply from the U.S. and other producers.

The neutral zone, spanning more than 2,200 square miles (5,700 square kilometers), was created by a 1922 treaty between Kuwait and the fledgling Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In the 1970s, the two Gulf Arab monarchies agreed to divide the area and incorporate each half into their respective territory while still sharing and jointly managing the zone’s petroleum wealth. The region contains two main oil fields: the onshore Wafra and offshore Khafji.

The area hasn’t produced anything since 2014, when Khafji was shut down after a spat between the neighbors. The disagreement escalated over the Wafra field, when Saudi Arabia extended the original 60-year concession of the field, giving California-based Chevron, through its subsidiary Saudi Arabian Chevron Inc., rights there until 2039. Kuwait was furious over the announcement and claims Riyadh never consulted it about the extension.

Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have held a number of private meetings since 2015, at one point coming close to signing an agreement before pulling back at the last minute over wording in the final documents regarding contentious sovereignty issues. They entered a fresh phase of talks earlier this year.

The fields are particularly important because U.S. sanctions on Iran and Venezuela have tightened the supply of heavy, high-sulfur crude — precisely the kind of oil that the neutral zone produces. U.S. diplomats had been pressing both sides to reach an agreement.

The Cabinet also approved the four-year fiscal plan for fiscal years 2021 to 2024 proposed by the Finance Ministry, Government Spokesperson Narumon Pinyosinwat said.

Under the plan, the Finance Ministry projects economic growth rate at 3.1 to 4.1 per cent in 2021, or 3.6 per cent boosted by domestic demand.

The headline inflation rate is expected to be in the low range of 0.7 to 1.7 per cent.

The government has forecast that the economy will expand by 3.4 to 4.3 per cent between 2022 and 2024, or growth could accelerate to 4 per cent between 2023 and 2024. The growth recovery is based on assumptions of accelerating private investment, expansion of exports and progress of government investment in infrastructure projects.

Private consumption is expected to expand due to rise in income and recovery of the global economy in 2021. Due to the economic recovery, it would pull inflation up to about 1.4 per cent in 2022, then 1.5 per cent in 2023 and 1.7 per cent in 2024.

The movement will continue to run fiscal deficits but the gap between revenue and spending is expected to narrow between 2021 and 2024.

New sources of income are expected from rising taxes on consumer products harmful to health, environmental impact, e-commerce, bond transactions, transfer pricing, and revision of tax exemption for individuals.

The government has vowed to adopt a conservative approach to public debt management. As of the end of August, public debt totalled Bt6.9 trillion, equivalent to 41.2 per cent of GDP.

The government, however, has not determined when it can achieve a balanced budget. The central bank has forecast the economy to expand 2.5 per cent this year and 2.8 per cent next year, the slower growth affected largely by the global slowdown.

Meanwhile, BOT deputy governor Mathee Supapongse said that Thai inflation was on a declining trend — it was 2.5 per cent between 2000-2007, 2.7 per cent during 2007-2013 and 0.6 per cent from 2014-2019.

The BOT and the Finance Ministry have adopted an inflation target in the range of 1-3 per cent for next year, shifting from the annual target of 2.5 per cent, and minus or plus 1.5 per cent that had been adopted since 2015. The range target will provide flexibility to implement monetary policy and if inflation diverges from the target range, the central bank’s Monetary Policy Committee will report the situation to Finance Minister.

“Adopting a new approach on inflation targeting does not mean the central bank will change the direction of monetary policy. The central bank will continue its easing of monetary policy for a while in order to accommodate economic growth,” he assured.

Baht to remain strong: Kasikorn Research Centre

He said the measure is expected to be launched soon.

The government has expected the economy to improve in the first quarter next year after its launch of short-term, medium-term and long-term stimulus packages.

Prayut added that the government has prepared a host of measures to cope with employee layoffs at some companies and shutdowns at others.

NBTC secretary-general Takorn Tantasith said, afterthe auctions, licences will be awarded to the bid winners in late February and network installation can start in March.

If things go as planned, they will be able to get the service off the ground in the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) in June or July next year.

Under the programme, the party proposing the project, either private or public, can hold 60 to 90 per cent of ownership while the community, which must have more than 200 households, holds the other 10-40 per cent (10 per cent preferred stock and up to 40 per cent in additional stock).

The approval was well received by communities and private companies interested in the project. The ministry will accept applications early next year.It will also announce details of financial support for the setup of power plants in remote area.

Community-based power plants will use a Feed-in Tariff (FiT) mechanism in renewable power investment for Very Small Power Producers (VSPP), with 10 MW for non-firm power plant. Next year, the government will start buying 700 MW from private producers and has scheduled the commercial operation dates for two types of projects: Quick win project in 2020, followed by the general project the year after. The investment is estimated at Bt70-84 billion or Bt100-120 million per megawatt.

Pajon Sriboonruang, president of the Thai Biogas Trade Association (TBTA), said:” The association has proposed 33 Quick win projects, with a total capacity of 80 MW driven by energy crops such as Napier grass, involving both completed plants and the more than 50 projects, totalling 100 MW in generating capacity, halted in 2014 after a change in policy by the previous government.

“If the Ministry of Energy allow the resumption of investment in the halted projects and their distribution into the system next year, it will result in increased income for the communities,” said Pajon.

The Quick win community power plant that uses biomass has not been proposed.

A source from the Ministry of Energy revealed that the community-based power plant policy for the glass-root economy will be divided into 3 parts, spanning 2020-2024, for a total of a thousand projects.

In 2020, there will be 20 community electricity business projects not exceeding 350 kilowatts in total, operating in remote community areas or at the end of the transmission line or outside the service area. In 2021, 100 new projects will start operation, followed by 300 in 2022 and another 300 within 2023-2024.