Briefs

Patee Sarasin, chief executive officer of Nok Air, said the airline would resume cancelled flights from today onwards, after suspending more than 500 since February 14 when pilots went on strike, followed by the resignation of 17 pilots.
The flight cancellations reportedly cost the airline Bt150 million, and Nok Air expects to take four months to solve its pilot shortage.
A representative of the airline yesterday insisted that it would continue operations as promised.
However, she refused to provide details on the progress of its internal restructuring.
According to Don Mueang International Airport’s website, the airline yesterday cancelled at least 10 flights scheduled to depart or land at Don Mueang.
The flights were to and from Roi Et, Udon Thani, Ubon Ratchathani, Nakhon Si Thammarat and Surat Thani.

KOREA KING BRAND TOP
AD SPENDER
Korea King, a brand of cooking pans, was the biggest spender of all brands for the first two months of the year.
However, overall advertising expenditure in January and February dropped by 6.73 per cent to Bt16.5 billion compared with the same two months of last year.
Nielsen (Thailand) reported that during the first two months of this year, Wizard Solutions, the distributor of Korea King cooking pans, spent about Bt273.44 million to publicise the company’s product.
In terms of brands, Korea King was followed in spending by Coca-Cola, Total Access Communication (DTAC), Toyota as well as Advanced Info Service (AIS).
In terms of companies, Wizard Solutions was No 6, following |Unilever (Thai) Holdings, AIS, DTAC, Toyota Motor Thailand and Coca-Cola (Thailand).

GOVT SPENDING,
TOURISM ‘KEY DRIVERS’
Government investment and the tourism sector will be the key drivers of the economy this year, Kasikornbank president Kattiya Indaravijaya said yesterday.
She made the remark on the sidelines of a seminar on the topic “Global Economic Outlook and Investment Recommendations for 2016”, co-hosted by KBank and Swiss private bank Lombard Odier.
KBank predicted that gross domestic product this year would grow by 3 per cent and inflation would be less than 1 per cent if government spending is implemented as planned.
Kattiya said one of the main risks was the Chinese economic situation.
She believes that the Bank of Thailand’s Monetary Policy Committee is unlikely to raise the benchmark interest rate this year.

THAIS TOP ARRIVALS
IN YANGON
The largest number of foreign tourists arriving at Yangon International Airport in 2015 came from Thailand, sources from the Myanmar Ministry of Transport said.
About 2 million tourists visited Myanmar via Yangon International last year, doubling the previous year’s record. In 2014, more than 1 million tourists entered Myanmar via Yangon’s airport, and more than 700,000 came through the airport in 2013.
Thailand topped the list of arrivals last year with more than 160,000.
An Immigration Department official said China and Japan were the next two biggest contributors of arrivals at the |airport.
–Eleven Myanmar