BUSINESS NEWS:

BoT reports shrinking investment & consumption in April

Despite continued surpluses Thailand has enjoyed in April, other economic indicators have shown the country could remain under the pressure of the current global crisis.

The Bank of Thailand reported today Private Investment Index contracted 16.4% on-year last month.

However when compared with the preceding month April, PII dropped 0.5%. The index fell 3.3 % on-month in March and 4.3% in February.

In terms of private consumption, the index dived deeper by 5.3% on-year. It was also a weaker improvement of 0.7% when compared to March when the index rose 2.6% on-month.

Meanwhile, Thailand continued to post an account balance surplus of 426 million dollars last month. But this is still significantly lower than the 2.4-billion-dollar figure recorded in March.

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Economists debate if Thai economy moves toward recovery

While a number of indicators could give a bad impression on the performance of the Thai economy in the past month, economists are still surprised by some signs of improvement.

Kasikorn Research Centre's macro-economic department head, Pimonwan Masujchariyawong, says today in the Bank of Thailand’s latest report Manufacturing Production Index has fallen less severely than many have thought.

MPI fell 9.7 % year-on-year but expanded 7.6 % on-month.

Pimonwan states MPI is a key gauge of Thai exports in monetary value.

She says prior to the official release of all data economists predicted that April MPI will fall by at least 14 %.

Despite a significant on-year contraction, Pimonwan believes the export industry will start to see a recovery from now.

However, TISCO Securities’ Head of Research, Poramet Tongbua, comments that even though last month’s MPI showed an improvement, it is too early that the situation will be better for good as many business operators remain unsure if the worst was already over.

Vishnu Varathan, an economist from Forecast Singapore, also suggests that while exports may be getting better, the entire economy must wait to see the same improvement in consumer demand for goods before people can bring out Champaign to celebrate the recovery.

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Housing development still doing fine during Jan-Apr’09

Housing experts have been surprised by how much the local real estate development been doing since the beginning of 2009.

Housing Business Association President, Issara Boonyang, says today during the first four months of this year, the local housing business has been doing better than earlier hoped.

He credits the government’s tax incentives and the downward trend of domestic interest rates for the better-than-expected performance.

Issara believes both Thai and global economies have survived the worst and are now on path of recovery which will benefit the industry considerably.

For the entire year of 2009, HBA is hopeful the situation will be satisfactory with the number of new construction projects to be similar to the 82,000-unit record of 2008.

Issara adds that the condominium segment has continued to attract more buyers particularly from those who have extra savings and want to make sizable return on investment while interest rates are low.

The association states such a trend will likely carry on into 2010.

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Shell urges the world to pay attention on carbon credits

As the world oil price returned to the upward trend in recent weeks, talks about the future of the energy have been raised again.

Leading refiner, Shell International, has shed light on concerns related to the depletion of global energy in decades to come.

Dr. Cho-Oon Khong,Chief Political Analyst, Shell International also suggested the world to turn its attention to carbon-credit trading which it believes is a tool that will help promote the creation of energy system and surroundings that is stable over the long term.

In addition, the world’s leading refiner noted this issue has been overlooked by many because of its high-cost nature.

Therefore, all governments are being urged to take a more active role to support this step towards a cleaner world.


SET MONITOR:

Thailand’s main stock index finished higher led by late-buying in the afternoon session

The Stock Exchange of Thailand composite index closed up nearly five points at 560.4 with high volume of 26.5 billion baht or about 773 million dollars.

Local institutions were today’s biggest net buyers of 1.2 billion baht or 36 million dollars followed by foreign investors of 132 million baht.

And retail investors were the only net sellers of more than 1.3 billion baht which is around 40 million dollars.

The local market added nearly 1% at Friday’s close after the index failed to break through the 570-point level.

Rising world oil price attributed to gains on the Thai bourse while the latest economic data from the Bank of Thailand has been in line with market expectations and has had no impact on today’s trade.

Index Performance
	Last	Change	%Change	High	Low	Volume ('000 Shares)	Value (M.Baht)
SET Index	560.41	+4.98	+0.90	569.55	560.41	4,466,127	26,501.30
SET100 Index	850.27	+7.75	+0.92	866.30	850.27	2,829,823	23,518.91
SET50 Index	398.36	+3.52	+0.89	406.12	398.36	1,739,522	21,054.21
mai Index	174.13	-0.83	-0.47	176.75	173.81	144,593	280.15
Source: The Stock Exchange of Thailand.

Net Buy/Sell
Investor Type	Buy (M.Baht)	%	Sell (M.Baht)	%	Net (M.Baht)
Local Institutions	4,868.04	18.18%	3,633.59	13.57%	1,234.45 M
Foreign Institutions	6,811.41	25.43%	6,677.83	24.93%	133.58 M
Retail Investors	15,102.23	56.39%	16,470.26	61.50%	-1,368.03 M
Source: KGI Securities (Thailand) PLC.

SET SPOTLIGHT:

EMC changes par value change from THB0.10 to THB1.00 to go in line with other construction shares

EMC Public revealed today the company has decided to change its par value from 10 satang to 1 baht per share because it wants its stocks to go in line with those in the construction sector.

EMC added the change will also enable stock analysts and investors to conveniently and easily analyze the stock’s fundamentals.

The company reckoned that the new par value may attract sizable investor interest and strong buy-up.

When asked to comment about its second-quarter earnings outlook, EMC is hopeful that it will register an revenue growth and maintains this year’s target at 2.8 billion baht or around 81.1 million dollars.

This evening, EMC share prices lost more than 6% and closed at 1.68 baht.

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THAI concedes Q2/09 outlook remains grim without profit in sight

Acting Thai Airways President, Narongsak Sangapong, says today the chances for the flag carrier to post a net profit in Q2-09 remain slim as its cabin factor continued fall and now ranges 64 - 65% when compared with 80% recorded in Q1.

And because of the ongoing new influenza scare, at least 15 % of charter flights from China and Japan have been cancelled.

However, Narongsak says he believes that for the year 2009, the company will still make profits with hopes set for a significant recovery from the end of Q3 onward.

However, today THAI prices closed slightly lower at 14.90 baht.

SET Today: Weekdays 6:30 pm