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Thailand set to miss ICAO safety deadline

The deputy government spokesman Major General Sunsern Kaewkumnerd has revealed that Thailand will probably miss its deadline for the grace period given by the International Civil Aviation Organisation, after the international body rejected the latest corrective action plan submitted by Thailand’s Department of Civil Aviation.

The DCA was given a 90-day grace period to comply with the ICAO’s standards, starting from March 20. Some of the key areas considered lacking are personnel licensing and training, airworthiness assessments and certification, accident investigation and airline operations oversight and licensing, with 560 points of concern.

The ICAO has so far rejected two proposals by the DCA, and Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha yesterday instructed relevant agencies to separate the 560 points of concern into urgent and long-term matters.

He wants the urgent issues fixed first and the new corrective action plan to be ready by June 15.

“There were 12 airlines in 2005 [in Thailand] before reaching 61 airlines in 2015,” he said. “Twenty airlines have ceased their operation so far and this shows that the standard used was not up to the international standard,” he said.

“The Prime Minister’s Office will present the corrective action plan to the ICAO to show the government’s sincerity in fixing the problems methodically, and the government believes that the new corrective action plan will be accepted by the ICAO despite missing the grace-peri?od deadline by around one month,” he added.

SEC issues Bt6.25m fine

The Securities and Exchange Commission has revealed that its settlement committee imposed a fine of Bt6.25 million on Sermkhun Kunawong, chief executive officer and director of CMO Plc, for using inside information to trade CMO shares. It said he was also fined for failing to report the changes of his CMO share?holding and launching a tender offer for CMO shares.

With the referral from the Stock Exchange of Thailand, the SEC’s probe found that during April 23 to May 14, 2012, Sermkhun had purchased CMO shares through his securities trading account by using non-public information from the company’s 2012 first-quarter Bt64 million net profit.

Between August 8 and September 13, 2012, he purchased CMO shares through another person’s trading account based on information about the 2012 interim dividend payment and warrants to purchase CMO ordinary shares that were to be issued and allocated to existing shareholders for free.

Following public disclosure of such information, he sold all the shares acquired during the latter period.

Global Power IPO

Global Power Synergy Public Company Limited, a producer and distributor of electricity, steam and utilities, is preparing to offer 374.57 million initial public offering shares to raise funds for a business expansion both domestically and internationally.

It has engaged KT ZMICO Securities, Finansa Securities and TISCO Securities as its financial advisors for the IPO, the company’s president Noppadol Pinsupa said. The company expects to raise funds and be listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand in the second quarter.