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Australia seeks easier wheat, cattle export to Kingdom
An Australian official has urged Thailand to allow imports of wheat and cattle because of low domestic supply and to support food-industry growth.
After meeting yesterday with Kenneth Baston, Western Australia state’s agriculture and food minister, Deputy Agriculture Minister Siriwat Kajornprasart said Thailand would discuss the proposal further with Australia.
The ministry has not obstructed cattle imports, but some conditions might need to be discussed.
Australia has also offered to help transfer technology and know-how on agriculture development to Thailand. Interesting industries include fisheries, food and livestock farming.
Mitsubishi eyes new-car sales in Myanmar
Mitsubishi Motors Corporation has commenced sales of its Thailand-sourced vehicles in Myanmar.
MMC established a service shop in Yangon in May, and began after-sales service to used Mitsubishi vehicles already in the market. MMC now enters the new-car market in Myanmar through a local company with the support of Mitsubishi Corporation.
With the Myanmar government’s recent revision of taxes on pickup trucks and loosening of restrictions on imports, MMC will import the Thai-made L200 pickup truck, known in the Kingdom as the Triton.
Later, while expanding its new-car line-up in parallel with successively establishing sales outlets and expanding its after-sales network, Mitsubishi will cement its brand in Myanmar’s automobile market, where rapid growth is expected.
MMC made the concentration of business resources in emerging markets a major strategic pillar of its JUMP 2013 mid-term business plan, which the company released in January 2011.
MMC will work to strengthen its operations in the Myanmar market, which it believes holds promise of future growth.
New power-purchase deal with Myanmar under discussion
Thailand and Myanmar are discussing the framework for a new electricity-purchase contract between the countries, Thai Energy Minister Pongsak Ruktapongpisa said yesterday.
Thailand is interested in purchasing up to 10,000 megawatts of electricity from Myanmar: 7,000MW from the My Tong hydro-power plant, and 2,000-3,000MW from the coal-driven Dawei power-generation plant.
Pongsak believes the power-purchase agreement will benefit the economic development projects of both countries as demand for cost-efficient power generation rises in line with economic prosperity. However, the plan would require Parliament’s approval in accordance with Article 190 of the Thai Constitution, he added.
The Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand and Ratchaburi Electricity Generating Holding are investment partners in the two Myanmar power plants covered by the plan.
TrueMove raises cellular migration plan with NBTC
TrueMove has informally proposed to the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission a plan to migrate all 17 million of its current users to True group’s cellular subsidiary Real Move within four months, Takorn Tantasit, secretary-general of the NBTC, said yesterday.
TrueMove will migrate all users to Real Move – known for its TrueMove H brand – in two ways: via mobile number portability (MNP), and Real Move also offering new phone numbers to these users with attractive promotional campaigns.
MNP enables mobile-phone users to move to other networks and keep their existing numbers. Each of the mobile-phone operators can port 60,000 numbers a day under the MNP system.
Both TrueMove and Digital Phone Co (DPC), whose cellular concessions expired last month, agreed to migrate all existing users to other networks even though they have the NBTC’s permission to continue services for a further year.
DPC earlier informed the NBTC that it would try to move out all 70,000 of its users by the end of this month.
There are now only some 30,000 users in its network.
BOT ensures regional banknote reserve sufficient amid flooding
The Bank of Thailand has finalised an emergency plan to cope with the worsening flooding situation, which involves the creation of an advance banknote reserve of three to five months at its nine operational centres around the country.
Deputy Governor Thongurai Limpiti yesterday said the central bank stood ready to deal with the effects of the flooding in the provinces, and was confident that its emergency measures would ensure the natural disaster did not affect any cash-withdrawal activity at commercial banks.
“We have coordinated with the Royal Thai Army for using their C130 aircraft in carrying banknotes to flooded areas in the event that road transportation cannot be used because of inundation,” he said.
