PUSH FOR ROAD PROJECT

The project’s Environmental Impact Assessment has been approved. Tendering for the project is expected to begin in 2019.
The Nakhon Pathom-Cha-am motorway project worth Bt80.6 billion is already included in the 2017 action plan. Its EIA has been approved and the project is expected to be submitted to the Public-Private Partnership Committee soon. Once the PPP Committee approves the project, the tendering process will begin late this year or early next. Construction is expected to take three years to complete.
The 2017 action plan also includes the Hat Yai-Sadao motorway project worth Bt30.5 billion, which is expected to go to public hearings in August or September before calling bids within one or two years. 

SMEs invited to become franchisees of Inthanin Coffee

Kasikornbank and Bangchak Retail are jointly offering loans to small and medium-sized enterprises for the opening of Inthanin Coffee shops under Bangchak Retail’s franchise system.
According to KBank first senior vice president Pipavat Bhadranavik, the bank and Bangchak Retail are promoting secure business ownership among Thai operators, offering loans to finance their investment in Inthanin Coffee shops, equivalent to 70 per cent of the total investment in each premises. 
Provided by KBank, the loan has a five-year term, plus a Bt5-million loan guarantee by the Thai Credit Guarantee Corporation (TCG). No business experience, collateral, or bank statements are required for the loan application. By year-end, the bank expects to see Bt80 million in new loans extended under this service.
Viboon Wongsakul, Bangchak Retail managing director, said Thailand’s retail coffee industry was worth about Bt17 billion annually, of which 75 per cent is contributed by franchise businesses. 
Two business platforms are available for Inthanin franchisees: Inthanin Garden, with a simple but elegant, easy-to-access style, offering 100-per-cent-organic Arabica coffee; and Inthanin Coffee, with a simple, modern look, yet stylish and friendly, offering a bolder coffee taste. Total investment for each of these outlets is around Bt2 million and Bt3 million, depending largely on shop area.
Bangchak Retail is planning to open 120 new Inthanin outlets this year, in addition to the 400 existing branches, and hopes to have at least 1,000 within five years or earlier. Inthanin shops will be remodelled with a more modern look and eco-friendly designs and materials.
Pipavat added that over the past year, the retail franchise business totalled Bt250 billion in market value, or 8 per cent of the country’s retail industry. 
KBank has set a loan target for franchise businesses at Bt2.22 billion, or an increase of 15 per cent from the previous year.

Start-up fund dives into marketing automation 

The Thai business-assistance fund 500 Tuk Tuks, 500 Start-ups has announced a key investment in the burgeoning field of marketing automation.
The fund has chosen cloud-based Resulticks (www.resulticks.com), described as a “new-generation omni-channel marketing automation platform” that helps businesses engage customers both offline and online, to help ensure that marketing automation is a “level playing field” for start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises.
Natavudh Pungcharoenpong, 500 Tuk Tuks managing partner, said that since the boundaries between offline and online customer engagement are blurred, businesses must rely on infrastructure facilities such as Resulticks to stay on top of the latest trends.
He said Resulticks helped marketers create and deliver “targeted, contextual multi-dimensional communications and campaigns” through all digital channels, including e-mail, mobile (near-field communication, apps, SMS) QR (quick response), social networks, ORM (object-relational mapping) and general websites, and follows up by measuring sales impacts.
Resulticks co-founder and chief executive Redickaa Subrammanian said the company saw a great opportunity for brands in Southeast Asia to seize the digital momentum and become leaders in global marketing automation.
“We’re excited that the folks at 500 Tuk Tuks have a similar view and have extended their support towards a digital transformation in customer-engagement in this region,” Redickaa said.
Natavudh said that while 500 Tuk Tuks has thus far invested in a mix of B2B (business to business) and B2C (business to consumer) companies, Resulticks represented a different category, able to meet the needs of both markets and organisations of every size structure. 
“This fact, along with the pro-business climate in Thailand, makes this venture with Resulticks a highly significant one that can bring about tremendous growth within the booming start-up ecosystem,” he said. 

Bangkok ‘most visited destination’ in Asia-Pacific

Bangkok remains the most visited destination in the Asia-Pacific region, while Singapore continues to lead the Thai capital in total visitor expenditure, according to the latest findings from the MasterCard Asia Pacific Destinations Index shared at the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) Global Summit in Bangkok.
Over the last two years (2015 and 2016), Singapore has tracked a strong 18-per-cent leap in visitor spending. One of only five destinations of the top 20 by total expenditure to reach a minimum spend of US$200 (Bt7,200) per day, Singapore attracted the highest spending visitors at $254 per day, followed by Beijing ($242), Shanghai ($234), Hong Kong ($242) and Taipei ($208).
According to the index’ findings, 2016 was an exciting year for tourism in this region. Fuelled by increasing consumer wealth among the Asia-Pacific region’s emerging markets, its thriving tourism industry continues to show vigorous progress. It is the world’s fastest-growing region for international tourism by contribution to gross domestic product, with tourism making up 8.5 per cent of GDP and 8.7 per cent of total employment last year.
Half of the 20 most visited destinations in the Asia-Pacific region saw more than 10-per-cent growth in international overnight arrivals from 2015 to 2016. Destinations that benefited the most from this growth include Northeast Asian and Southeast Asian markets – Seoul (32.7 per cent), Osaka (23.8 per cent), Bali (22.5 per cent), Tokyo (22.2 per cent), Hokkaido (21.9 per cent), Chiba prefecture in Japan (21.5 per cent) and Pattaya (20.6 per cent).
Overall, overnight arrivals to the 171 Asia-Pacific destinations monitored in 2016 stood at 339.2 million (9.8 per cent compounded annual growth rate from 2009-16), led by Bangkok, which tracked 19.3 million visitors. Singapore (13.1 million) came in second place, followed by Tokyo (12.6 million), Seoul (12.4 million) and Kuala Lumpur (11.3 million). 
China is the Asia-Pacific region’s most avid outbound travel market, having contributed 55 million international overnight visitors to the region last year or 16.2 per cent of the total.
Visitors to Asia-Pacific destinations are travelling to the region more, and doing so for longer periods. In 2016, visitors to the region stayed for a total of 1,768.7 million nights, an 8.1-per-cent CAGR from 1,023.1 million nights in 2009. Bangkok took the lead with 87.6 million nights, while Sydney came in second place with 87.5 million, followed by Kuala Lumpur at 76.7 million.
The Asia-Pacific region’s top 20 source markets contributed $201.5 billion to the region’s tourism revenues in 2016.
The mass of tourists from Northeast Asia have helped to boost these earnings. Key findings from the index revealed China (17.7 per cent) and South Korea (8.8 per cent) as the largest contributors to tourism expenditure in the Asia-Pacific region. In fact, these two markets were also top source markets for Singapore (China No 1), Bangkok (China No 1) and Tokyo (Korea No 1, China No 2), the region’s leading destinations by visitor expenditure. 
As renowned global shopping and dining locales, they are popular among affluent Chinese and South Korean tourists seeking new shopping or culinary experiences. 

Commerce Ministry hosts meeting on Trump’s ‘America first’ policy 

The Commerce Ministry yesterday held a meeting with representatives from the private sector and state agencies to seek ways to deal with the “America first” policy of US President Donald Trump.
The ministry will prepare information on bilateral trade between Thailand and the US and forward it to a government-sponsored panel on international economic policy on May 8 and to the US on May 10.
The ministry will inform the US that its trade deficit with Thailand is mainly due to the fact that Thailand exported to the US market products it cannot produce and most of the exporters were US investors in Thailand. In addition, Thailand has experienced trade deficits with the US in the service sector.
Last year the value of exports from Thailand to the US amounted to US$24.4 billion, accounting for 11.43 per cent of total exports from Thailand. During the first three months of this year, exports from Thailand were worth $6.079 billion, up 7.4 per cent year on year.