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Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has signed an order to set up a policy committee on special economic zones to help the country benefit from the integration of trade and transport within Asean.

The appointment of an SEZ policy committee is in line with the ruling junta’s policy to spread out economic progress to rural areas with good potential, especially border areas.

Under the policy, the National Council for Peace and Order, which General Prayut also heads, will support the establishment of factories and trading and investment activities in the rural areas to reduce the flow of rural people into Greater Bangkok.

This will also help ease the problems caused by the movement of migrant labour from neighbouring countries into Thailand, the junta believes.

Supervisory role

The Fiscal Policy Office will to ask Finance Minister Sommai Phasee to authorise the Bank of Thailand to supervise and inspect specialised financial institutions, better known as state banks.

The FPO has already talked with the central bank on the matter, after the recent resolution of the State Enterprise Policy Commission to empower the BOT to assume such tasks, said FPO director-general Krisada Chinavicharana.

Currently the Finance Ministry oversees the state banks. After the proposed change, the ministry would still have the power to set these banks’ policies and nominate their executives but would have to submit the nominees’ names for examination by the BOT.

Millcon to recapitalise

Millcon Steel’s board of directors has given the green light for the company to raise its registered capital by more than Bt522 million via a private placement to support investment plans that would diversify the firm’s business risks and generate immediate revenue.

Millcon is negotiating investments in alternative-energy projects in solar, biomass and garbage-based fuel. These investments would help diversify the company’s business risks and, since the plants in question are already generating electricity, provide immediate revenue.

The negotiations are in the final stage and should conclude soon. In any case, Millcon will seek shareholders’ approval on this capital-raising issue at a meeting scheduled for April 27, company president and CEO Sittichai Leeswadtrakul said.

LG shifting TV output

South Korea’s LG Electronics, the world’s second-largest maker of television sets after Samsung Electronics, will soon shift its TV production in Thailand to Vietnam for logistical ease and efficiency, said a top executive at its Thai unit.

The group wants to have one regional base with new machines for TV production comparable with those at its plants in Korea, said Nipon Wongsaengarunsri, marketing director of LG Electronics (Thailand) Co.

"Our parent company has considered Vietnam as the most worthwhile country to invest in. Wages are one factor ... but the main one is to ensure quality, as well as logistics," he said.

LG produces about 600,000 television sets a year in Thailand worth Bt8 billion, with 100,000 sets for export, Nipon said. Most materials are brought from China and assembled in Thailand but it takes several weeks to ship them there, while the China-to-Vietnam route takes less than a week, he said. "We will move to Vietnam from late April to early May," he said.

LG in Indonesia will also gradually shift its TV production over the same period, he added. – Reuters

Projects face probe

The committee tasked to evaluate the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission’s performance will ask the junta-appointed committee monitoring state spending and the National Anti-Corruption Commission to look into alleged irregularities in projects of the NBTC office, committee chairman Boonyavat Kruahongse said yesterday.

The committee yesterday passed a resolution on the matter after the NBTC declined a recent request to explain the doubtful projects to the panel by a March 15 deadline.