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Govt revenue exceeds target in April
Government revenue in April exceeded the target by Bt10.5 billion thanks partly to the first-car-buyer scheme, according to the Fiscal Policy Office,
Director Somchai Sajjaponse said revenue for the month was Bt127 billion, higher than expected thanks mainly to vehicle taxes and corporate income tax. This reflected the higher income of households and the business sector, while the first-car programme also gave revenue a boost.
Government revenue for the whole year is expected to hit the target of Bt2.1 trillion even though the baht’s appreciation will affect revenue collection.
Offshore Oil-Gas Summit
Thailand will host the “Asia Offshore Oil and Gas Summit 2013” on November 18 and 19.
The event will assess technological developments and new exploration and production breakthroughs in the offshore industry. Coupling new exploration updates with analysis of current projects, this event will provide extensive networking opportunities with key decision-makers in Asia’s oil and gas industry.
Key topics to be covered include: networking opportunities with government ministries and investors; technical analysis of brownfield and greenfield offshore projects; a sub-sea technology focus on the newest techniques in overcoming technical challenges; and country-by-country guides for investors, contractors and service providers looking to capitalise on Asia’s potential.
Intermach at Bitec
Intermach, a four-day exhibition of industrial machinery, is taking place until tomorrow at Bitec, Bang Na. Now in its 30th year, Intermach boasts 20-per-cent growth in exhibition space with more than 1,200 participating manufacturers and distributors of industrial machinery from 35 countries to showcase more than 4,000 products and technologies, several making their Southeast Asian debut.
Co-organised with the Board of Investment and co-located with Sheet Metal Asia, the region's largest showcase of sheet-metal fabrication machinery, and Subcon Thailand, the largest subcontracting exhibition in Southeast Asia, Intermach 2013 marks the growing Thai machinery import and export industry and opportunities of the upcoming Asean Economic Community.
K-Asset fund for risk-averse
Kasikorn Asset has introduced the K MPLUS Fund in response to risk-averse investors’ demands to park their money for longer than a week and seek returns from good-quality debt instruments with longer duration than those of money-market funds.
The new fund’s policy is to invest abroad with 100-per-cent hedging. With high liquidity, the fund can be traded daily. The initial-public-offering period is May 27 to June 3.
Chongrak Rattanapian, executive chairman of K-Asset, said domestic rates and returns on debt instruments would remain stable or move downwards. Over the short term, rates and bond yields will remain low and volatile until May 29.
Despite some market expectations and yields falling, yields of local and foreign bonds may slip further upon domestic reference rate cuts. Several regional central banks, including those of South Korea, Vietnam, Australia and India, have trimmed their policy rates since early this month. This may add some pressure for rate reduction at the Bank of Thailand.
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New businesses highlight GMM Grammy revenue
GMM Grammy reported 77-per-cent growth to Bt374 million in first-quarter revenue from its new businesses of home shopping and satellite television.
CEO Busaba Daorueng said the company’s traditional businesses, comprising music, digital media, film, event organising and management, and animation, posted Bt2.21 billion in combined revenues, down from the same quarter of last year, which recorded higher-than-normal revenue, driven by special projects provided high returns.
The company achieved 14-per-cent growth in media business in the first quarter compared with the same quarter last year, higher than the average growth of media industry.
The company’s total revenues in the first quarter reached Bt2.59 billion, down 11 per cent from the same quarter of 2012.
The contribution from new businesses increased significantly from 7 per cent in the first quarter of last year to 14 per cent in the first three months of 2013.
Securities rated
PTT Exploration and Production’s proposed hybrid securities worth up to US$1 billion (about Bt30 billion) have been rated “BBB-” by Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services and “Baa3” by Moody’s Investors Service. The ratings are two notches below the rating agencies’ corporate ratings for the company.
CPF chases snack market
Charoen Pokphand Foods has set aside a marketing budget of Bt350 million as it strives to lead the snack market, targeting sales growth to be 30 per cent this year.
Vittavat Tantivess, CPF executive vice president for food business (branded products), said CP Easy Snack was the company’s flagship brand with more than 40 items. More than 20 new items will be launched throughout this year.
He added that the total market value of snack products averaged Bt60 billion per year.
Debentures ranked
Fitch Ratings (Thailand) has assigned ICBC (Thai) Leasing Co’s unsecured unsubordinated short-term debenture programme of up to Bt15 billion a national short-term rating of “F1+(tha)”.
The debentures will have a maturity of no more than 270 days and will be issued in several tranches within a year. The proceeds will be used for refinancing and for funding the expansion of the company’s auto-loan portfolio.
Developer on target
Property firm Krisdamahanakorn has maintained its 2013 revenue target of Bt1.5 billion after recording revenue of Bt239 million and net profit of Bt111 million in the first quarter.
Managing director Wirat Aiew-Aksorn said that the company’s board had approved purchase by its subsidiary KMC Village Co of a 100-per-cent stake in Chid Tara Co, a property firm that has the rights to develop a resort on 81 rai (13 hectares) in Kho Lan, Pattaya, worth Bt49.9 million. “We plan to develop the resort in the third quarter of this year when the deal is complete,” he said.
PCI workshop for HP users
ComForte Asia and DataOne Asia (Thailand) Co ran a successful workshop on the payment-card industry for users of HP NonStop computers in Thailand.
A guest speaker from Verizon Enterprise Solutions talked about this industry from the perspective of an auditor or forensic analyst.
Representatives from all HP NonStop users in the financial industry in Thailand were present and learned about PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) in Asia, PCI best practices for HP NonStop systems and how to embrace the PCI challenge by implementing a suitable project, procedures and software solutions.
Thomas Burg, chief technology officer of comForte 21 and one of the speakers, said the workshop “shows that PCI has arrived in Thailand and that organisations are working towards achieving PCI compliance. Based on the success of this workshop, we are considering running similar events in other regions.”
Tax cut proposed for overseas shows
Thai companies are likely to be allowed to deduct from their corporate taxes the expenses incurred from their participation in overseas trade and exhibition fairs.
The Finance Ministry on Tuesday will ask for the Cabinet’s approval for a draft law that will allow companies to deduct 100 per cent of the expenses involving space rental, insurance, and shipments of materials for the exhibitions. To be eligible, expenses must be incurred between January 1, 2013, and December 31, 2014.
Nod to discount
The three main mobile-telephone operators agreed a 15-per-cent discount for all promotional packages of their third-generation cellular service on 2.1 gigahertz.
After many rounds of discussion between the NBTC and the three 3G-2.1GHz operators, the licence holders will offer a 15-per-cent discount to users.
