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Swiss Re puts flood claim bill at Bt18 bn
Swiss Re estimates claims costs of US$600 million (Bt18 billion), net of retrocession and before tax, from the floods in Thailand.
The estimates remain subject to significant uncertainty due to complexity of loss assessment, as water levels remain high in some areas, according to a company statement released yesterday. – The Nation
Insurance income up
The Thai Life Assurance Association reported yesterday that total premiums grew 12.1 per cent to Bt263.31 billion during the first 10 months of this year despite the flood crisis affecting consumer spending.
Of the total, renewal premiums accounted for Bt182.6 billion and first-year premiums for Bt80.71 billion. The persistency ratio was still high at 87 per cent.
The association believes that the industry should grow by an average of 10 per cent for the entire year. – The Nation
Rice vigilance urged
The commerce minister yesterday urged the Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives Ministry to make it clear how rice from neighbouring countries is entering Thailand illicitly, taking unfair advantage of the price-pledging programme.
A source at the Commerce Ministry said the Agriculture Ministry should point out problem areas and ask for assistance from the Department of Special Investigation to help with inspections.
So far, the Commerce Ministry's Internal Trade Department has allowed cross-province rice pledging to facilitate the scheme. Because of the flood crisis, rice production in the Central region has been damaged, so there will be less rice from that area to join the price-subsidy programme.
The scheme is mainly focused on main-crop production, and 122 millers have participated in the cross-province project. From October 7 to December 5, the project received about 2.38 million tonnes of paddy rice to be subsidised. It is expected that total production will reach 3 million tonnes by the end of this month. – The Nation
Tariff list expands
Customs bureaus in the 10 Asean countries are adopting an expanded common list of tariff lines starting on January 1.
The move is in line with the objective of building unified customs processes for the bloc.
According to Singapore Customs, which led the Asean task force that developed the Asean Harmonised Tariff Nomenclature (AHTN) 2012, the new list increased the number of items covered to 9,558 tariff lines from 8,300 in the version that was adopted in 2007.
In a statement, the agency said most of the additional tariff lines were on products relating to fish, machinery and vehicles. – Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANN
