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BANGKOK
BANGKOK BUSINESS BRIEF December 2011
1
BUSINESS BRIEF
Vol. No. 1, Issue No. 1
December 2011
THB 100.-
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Bangkok Business Brief: The quick guide to your business news
By Alan Verstein
Thailand struggles for high marks on ASEAN scorecard By Dean Outerson
With just over three years until ASEAN is meant to transform itself into the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), questions remain about whether members can achieve the AEC Blueprint bench-
Inside
General Interest Economy Government Finance/Investment Production Infrastructure/Logistics Retail/Services IT/Comms Tourism Real Estate Environment/CSR Business Organizations The Chambers The Calendar
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marks by the 2015 target date. While there has been progress in certain sectors in most of the ten ASEAN member states, significant work still needs to be done in key areas. Despite optimism from some ministers and from the ASEAN Secretariat, many analysts in the region speculate that the dream of the AEC will take more time. They say that Thailand in particular, needs to make significant improvements in certain sectors in order to achieve these benchmarks. If the AEC reaches its goals and achieves economic integration in 2015, the combined economies will feature a population of over 600 million, a forecast nominal GDP of US$1,800 billion and over 6% of the world’s trade. The AEC will be the third largest economy in Asia, behind China and India.
URGENT! British expats see Page 12 NOW! In order to get to these numbers, the 2007 AEC Blueprint calls for the elimination of all tariffs on all goods within the community, labour mobility (starting with seven professions), liberalisation of the services sector (including hotels and tourism), free flow of investment in all industries, a single aviation market, an integrated competition policy to prevent monopolies, infrastructure development (with a focus on transport, ICT, energy and other cross border issues), and improved agreements and integration in areas such as taxation, e-commerce and SME development.
The newspaper you’re holding right now comes from a need for a resource that I thought our city has been lacking for too long: a businessto-business journal that consolidates and summarizes the reported business news happening here. In the United States, every major city has its own similar business journal, and I believe that the time has come to have a similar publication here. This newspaper is a guide to quickly digest the month’s local business news from various news outlets, categorized into 12 topics of interest (see ‘Inside’ to the left) and summarized with a brief sample of the full story. If you find a summary in which you wish to read the whole article, then just enter the short code provided at the end of the synapsis into your web browser and you’ll be taken directly to the original story from the original source. This monthly guide is just the ‘tip of the iceberg’, however, as you can also visit our website – www.bangkokbusinessbrief.com – on a daily basis and get a snapshot of the day’s business news, all with links to open up the full original articles.
And we don’t stop there: every month brings fresh cover stories, Chamber updates, and event calendars. We have more features planned for the future as we expand, so join us every Story continues on Page 20. day online and monthly in print.