Thailand is set to end 2019 at the weakest pace of growth in five years and little to cheer about next year, as South-east Asia’s second-largest economy faces headwinds from global trade tensions, a surging baht and rising political risks, Malay Mail reported. The export-reliant country has been sharply hit by the Sino-US trade conflict. Exports may fall 3.3 per cent in 2019 before rising just 0.5 per cent in 2020, according to the Bank of Thailand (BOT).
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Thailand's household debt in the second half this year has slowed from the first half thanks to weak housing demand, excess supply in the property market and tighter lending from financial institutions, the Bangkok Post reported. Car loans slowed down because of lower car and motorcycle sales, while most financial institutions retained strict scrutiny for credit lending, according to a report to the cabinet yesterday by state planning unit National Economic and Social Development Council (NESDC). Yet loans for other personal consumption increased, mainly for credit cards.
Thailand’s Pace Development Corp., owner of gourmet grocer Dean & DeLuca, said it’s in default on 2.6 billion baht ($88 million) of debt owed to one of the nation’s top banks, Bloomberg News reported. Siam Commercial Bank Pcl has asked the firm to repay outstanding amounts by Nov. 4, Pace Development said in a stock exchange filing on Monday. The company said it will accelerate discussions with the lender to prepare financial restructuring and debt management plans so it can continue developing projects.
Teachers threatening to stop repaying loans from the Government Savings Bank are risking bankruptcy and disqualification from government service, deputy justice permanent secretary Tawatchai Thaikyo warned on Tuesday. He was responding to the announcement by leaders of a network of professional teachers' organisations meeting in Maha Sarakham on Saturday that their 450,000 members would stop paying off debts to the state-owned bank next month in protest at increasing interest rates, the Bangkok Post reported. "Be prepared to become bankrupt if you owe more than 1 million baht...
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Thailand's Central Bankruptcy Court has approved a business plan for Sahaviriya Steel Industries Pcl (SSI), Thailand's biggest steel maker, to restructure debts worth 69.2 billion baht ($1.94 billion), Reuters reported. The court cleared SSI to implement the restructuring plan after some 91.90 percent of its creditors voted in favour in September, SSI said in a statement on Thursday. Progress on restructuring SSI's debt will be positive for the Thai banking sector as bank creditors will be able to reduce reserves related to SSI loans.
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Thai hotel group Minor International has made its biggest ever acquisition with a 294 million euro ($320 million) deal to buy 14 Tivoli chain hotels that belonged to the collapsed Espirito Santo Group, Reuters reported. The purchase of the properties in Portuagl and Brazil is part of Minor's aggressive eoverseas expansion plan. The group said last year that it wanted to have 190 hotels by 2019. The Tivoli deal lifts its tally to 145.
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Britain's second-biggest steelmaker SSI UK said on Monday it plans to mothball its Redcar plant in northeast England and axe about 1,700 jobs, calling its future into question and deepening a crisis in the British steel sector. The loss-making company, a unit of Thailand's biggest steelmaker Sahaviriya Steel Industries (SSI), has been hit by a slump in steel prices this year ST-CRU-IDX, which it expects will continue in the short term. The Redcar plant, SSI's only British operation, employs 2,000 people directly, meaning it plans to axe nearly its entire workforce.
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Sahaviriya Steel Industries has reached an agreement with its creditors to enter debt-restructuring for the massive Bt50 billion it owes them and has pulled the plug on its upstream plant in Britain as part of its strategy to keep its core business in Thailand afloat, The Nation reported. "The huge loss of the UK base is crimping the cash flows of SSI in Thailand, so we had to keep the hot-rolled coil steel business in Thailand going by opening negotiations with lenders," Win Viriyaprapaikit, president of SSI, said yesterday.
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A nasty consumer debt hangover awaits Thailand, as recently highlighted by EM Squared. Over the past decade, Thais have binged on auto financing and unsecured loans, to the extent that nominal household debt doubled between 2008 and 2014, and debt has reached 80 per cent of GDP*. Consumption growth has stalled, and neither consumers nor the country’s banks can stomach much more. Yet for many in Thailand, the situation is even more precarious than official figures suggest.
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