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TAT expects tourism windfall during chinese new year

The Tourism Authority of Thailand is counting on 530,000 Chinese visitors bringing in Bt22.9 billion into the local economy during Chinese New Year.

During the 10-day-long celebration, Chinese arrivals would surge by 47 per cent to 530,000 and revenue from them by 49 per cent to Bt22.9 billion.

Spending per person per trip is expected to rise by 6 per cent to Bt22,600.

About 890 charter flights are scheduled to touch down at Bangkok, Phuket, Chiang Mai and Krabi.

TAT sees a bright outlook for the Chinese market continuing through next month, so it is taking steps to work with airlines to woo more passengers from second-tier cities such as Tianjin, Harbin, Ching Tao, Wuhan, Nanchin, Jinan, Chongqing, Xian and Chengdu.

Businessmen, medical tourists and female travellers are also the main targets.

For this whole year, Thailand aims for 5.3 million visitors from mainland China and a revenue of Bt210 billion.

StanChart now a settlement bank

Thailand Clearing House Co, a subsidiary of the Stock Exchange of Thailand, has appointed Standard Chartered Bank (Thai) Plc as the fifth settlement bank in Thailand for the securities market.

It started services on Monday to help strengthen the clearing and settlement process for the Thai capital market and provide services for its clearinghouse members.

In 2014, the net value of securities clearing and settlement was Bt1 trillion or a daily average of Bt4.6 billion, Bordin Unakul, an executive vice president of the SET, said yesterday.

Govt compensation sought for npls

The Finance Ministry, in a couple of weeks, will ask the Cabinet to pay Bt3 billion to the Small and Medium Enterprise Development Bank of Thailand, the Islamic Bank of Thailand and the Government Savings Bank to cover their losses of nearly Bt20 billion from loans extended to eight state projects.

These projects have led to non-performing loans of more than Bt3 billion or about 15 per cent of total loans.

“If any projects are incomplete, the ministry may have to set aside a budget to compensate for such damage incurred by the banks that got involved. Initially, at least a Bt3-billion budget may be set aside for compensation,” a ministry source said yesterday.