Briefs
Play
NTT Com acquires most of Digital Port
NTT Communications Corporation has acquired a 74-per-cent share of Digital Port Asia, a provider of data-centre services in Thailand.
Digital Port was established last year by Montri Anivat and his family, who founded Unitrio Technology, a builder of data centres. Digital Port is scheduled to open a large data centre in Amata Industrial Park, where many multinational companies are based, in June next year.
Many Japanese and other multinational companies are expanding their operations in Thailand against the backdrop of robust economic growth in this country and the surrounding Greater Mekong Subregion.
Data-centre services are in high demand among companies looking to optimise their information and communications technology environments and strengthen business-continuity planning after the destructive floods of 2011.
GSB waits
After the Monetary Policy Committee trimmed the policy rate by 25 basis points last week, the Government Savings Bank is adopting a wait-and-see attitude until its board considers the issue in two weeks.
“Interest rates tend to go on the downward trend, and all commercial banks expect that. When [our] interest rates will be cut, that depends on factors, including market competition, at that time,” president Woravit Chailimpamontri said yesterday.
Besides the rate cut, GSB’s financial status and the interest-rate competition in the commercial banking system will be taken into consideration in the board meeting, he said.
GSB has no policy to compete with commercial banks in deposit products, such as short-term deposits of three or nine months.
The bank has Bt1.7 trillion in deposits against Bt1.63 trillion in outstanding loans.
Myanmar Coke plant
Coca-Cola Company recently inaugurated a bottling plant in Myanmar as part of its US$200-million (Bt6.1 billion) investment planned for the country to create 22,000 jobs over five years.
Muhtar Kent, chairman and CEO of Coca-Cola Company, was in Yangon to attend the opening ceremony.
The plant marks the first time in more than 60 years for Coca-Cola to bottle its products in the country. The plant is in Crystal Springs, Hmawbi Township.
Student service
Krungthai Bank has launched a campaign called “KTB Outward Remittance for Study Abroad” offering a discount in transfer fees for eight main currencies.
Suwannee Sukhavachana, executive vice president and director of KTB’s financial management group, said yesterday that the bank saw the importance and potential of the international-transaction market for educational purposes.
The special deal is available until the end of this year.
New measures to ease cost of living
The Cabinet yesterday assigned agencies to draw up relief measures to ease the cost-of-living burden, as product prices rise and a raft of earlier relief measures have expired.
Chalitrat Chandrubeksa, deputy government spokesperson, said measures under six policies had expired and that meant agencies needed to introduce other measures to relieve the burden on the public as the cost of living rises.
The six recently expired measures are: the Blue Flag cheap-product scheme; maintaining fuel prices; a debt moratorium for farmers and low-income earners; the first-home and first-car schemes; the community and village fund project; and pledging schemes for some agricultural products.
Chalitrat said the government’s lowering of excise duty on diesel – to keep the price at no more than Bt30 per litre – had helped businesses and the general public to save about Bt180 billion between September 2011 and April this year.
LPG usage soars in transportation
Domestic consumption of liquefied petroleum gas by the transportation sector in the first four months of the year increased by 53 per cent, while the household sector consumed only 193,000 tonnes, down from late last year after the Energy Ministry and police cracked down on the illegal use of household LPG by the transportation sector.
Veerapol Jirapradiskul, director-general of the Energy Business Department, said LPG consumption from January to April averaged 623,000 tonnes a month, or 20,800 tonnes a day, up 8 per cent, mainly from the petrochemical and transportation sectors.
LPG usage for transportation rose by 53 per cent, at 4,500 tonnes per day. Following the crackdown by the ministry and police, the latest household LPG consumption figure reflects a decline of 13 per cent to 6,900 tonnes per day.
LPG consumption by the industrial sector fell 1 per cent to 1,700 tonnes a day, resulting in higher income for the Oil Fund of Bt3 per kilogram, or almost Bt200 million a month, he said, adding that the projected increase in revenue for the fund was some Bt2 billion over the course of this year.
S&P affirms ADB’s ratings
Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services has affirmed its “AAA” long-term and “A-1+” short-term foreign-currency issuer credit ratings on the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
