Arrivals of ocean liners to add color to Thai tourism

About twenty ocean liners are visiting Thailand this year, adding about 100,000 more tourists to the Amazing Thailand Year 1998-1999. The government has been urged to transform seaports in the south to harbor those passenger liners which are more frequently visiting southern tourist resort cities.

Super Star Leo, the newest in line, which carries as many as 3,000 passengers, will visit Phuket later this year after the recent visit by Sun Vistra, a European registered vessel. Regent of the Sea will be the first to visit Thailand in 1999; the vessel will call at Phuket in the Andaman and then Samui in the Gulf of Thailand in 1999. There will be 17 more ocean liners to come through the whole year, said industry sources.

Industry observers, however, said Thailand is likely to benefit very little from those international passenger ships as the center of the business is in Singapore, on the way to other Asian destinations. The government is urged to develop seaports in the south to cater those ships which are escaping from the Mediterranean and the Arctic during winter time.

The new boom seen as a boon to Kra Canal project; Queen Elizabeth visits Sichang island twice a year; Star Cruise, Super Star and Gemini call at Phuket every Wednesday; chartered ships and cruises are more frequent to Phuket.

Dusit Thani group to sell all shares in MBK

After announcing the plan to sell the operation of the Royal Princess Hotels last week, Chairwoman of Dusit Thani group Khunying Chanat Piyaui said the group would sell all the shares in MBK Properties and Development Plc., owner of Maboonkrong shopping center, held for over the past two decades.

Khunying Chanat said the returns would be used to repay debts incurred from investing in the Royal Princess. The group, owner of the prestigious Dusit Thani hotel chains, has been in negotiations with an Australian hotel group in a sell-off plan of the sister hotel chain, which has several branches nationwide, for about Baht 1 billion.

Dusit Thani has earned Baht 1.1 billion from selling the Kempinsky Hotel chains to Siam Sindhorn group, an affiliation to Siam Commercial Bank, and all foreign debts were repaid, said Khunying Chanat. However, the group’s sister hotel chain has aggressively expanded in the past few years and fell into heavy debt after the economic crash, she said.

Dusit Thani used to own 23 per cent in MBK group; portions of shares were sold off in the past year; due diligence with the Australian group expected to start in 1-2 weeks.

Airline wins Internet award

by Mirin MacCarthy

There is a rumour that there was life before computers and ballpoint pens. In the seventies and early eighties newspaper offices worldwide employed thousands of media journalists noisily clacking typewriter keys. Groups anxiously hovered by the teleprinter waiting for it to spit out its hot international gossip. Today there is not one of those outmoded machines in sight and just about everyone has their own personal computer in all major industries, airlines, banks, hotels, hospitals, even smaller retail shops and private homes. In many schools our six year old children are taught to be computer literate.

The Internet has become the way of the future. Instant communication and information access is available via Internet modem. Commercial transactions are now readily available by Internet. Banking, airline ticketing, even shopping can be readily had without leaving the home/office. Consider for a moment the telephone bills of the future. Or the immense havoc and frustration if computers and mainframes everywhere crash, if the millennium bug really catches on.

There is no life without progress, however, and not many, even red-hot environmentalists, would willingly return to the days of writing on slates, horse dispatch riders and radio communication.

More and more businesses and even private users depend on the Internet for survival. It has even reached the stage where there are Internet awards given now.

Qantas Airways has just won one of the most prestigious Internet awards, the Australian Financial Review/Telstra Internet Awards 1998. The Qantas Group’s introduction of Internet initiatives, "Is to focus on customer service. Our key drive is to ensure the new features add value for our customers, particularly Qantas frequent flyers. We consider the Internet a vital part of our overall electronic commerce portfolio," said Mr. Denis Adams, Qantas Group Commercial GM.

The way of the future may very well become satellite travel, however, modems and microchips and web pages are here to stay.

NTBs considered by authorities to counter unfair trade

Officials of the Foreign Ministry and other authorities are considering the use of non-tariff barriers as measures to counter trading partners which perform unfair trade with Thailand. Foreign Ministry officials have been busy studying similar measures being used against Thai products by the US, Japan, Australia, Korea and European Union.

According to officials, exporters have been in difficulties in those markets on which unfair measures have been practiced in order to block Thai products. Thailand should opt for similar measures, which are not against international agreements under the framework of the World Trade Organization, to counter unfair trade, they said.

Hygienic standards, environmental friendliness, quota systems, export subsidy and other anti-dumping measures have been considered as possible means to be applied to a number of imported items from those unfair traders, said officials.

Thai fresh fruits permanently kept away from entering Australian market; frozen pork bared from Japan, only a few fresh fruits allowed; AD tariffs collected on Thai-made glass sheets, PVC and refrigerators by Australia while EU collects on about 10 items.

TMB president Thanong considers resignation

Thai Military Bank’s president Thanong Pittaya is considering an early retirement, possibly at the end of the year, as the bank has run into deep problems caused by rising non-performing loans. Dr Thanong has been caught in the middle of conflicts among executive directors of the bank who would not agree to a restructuring plan proposed by the president.

Dr Thanong feared that TMB could creep to the brink if a decision is not made on how to build a new future. Pressures mount after a proposal to merge with Bank of Ayudhaya was shot down by TMB board, after BAY demanded that it dominate the name of the new bank. Another merge proposal was also turned down by Siam Commercial Bank because of TMB’s huge NPL (non-performing loans).

Dr Thanong believes TMB may need to join the government’s first tier financial restructuring program to survive, but the idea was rejected by TMB military directors who would not want to see the bank fall into the hands of the Bank of Thailand, said TMB sources.

TMB to issue 600 million new shares for Baht 8-10 billion new capital fund; foreign buyers/partners have been sought; Dr Thanong was depressed of the fact that he is now under the BOT chief who was sacked from the post of deputy permanent secretary of finance when he was minister under the Chavalit administration.

Combining plan hits snag after PTT backs away from refineries

The plan by two major oil refineries to combine their refining units has hit another snag when the Petroleum Authority of Thailand insisted that it would reduce its holding in both Star Petroleum Refining Co and Rayong Refinery Co and is in negotiations with a Middle Eastern oil company on the sell off.

According to industry sources, PTT has told both Shell and Caltex that the government-owned oil agency would bring shares in the two companies down from 36 per cent to about 10 per cent in 1999, to bring in some fresh cash. PTT’s plan has, however, complicated the plan to combine refining units of SPRC and RRC.

The formation of the Alliance Refining Co, the new company to be formed by SPRC and RRC, was forced to be postponed from October to some unspecified date early next year, said sources. The new company will loose some investment benefits from the government after PTT backs off, they said.

SPRC closed for maintenance this month while SPRC boosts production to 1.5 million barrels a day, up from 1.3 million barrels a day; PTT’s talks with potential buyers to last until early next year under privatization plan; Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Pattara Finance and Tisco Finance and Securities authorized as financial advisors.

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