Oil crisis : ministers drop their jacket

Shall we laugh ? Or cry ? Next week, they will meet… in underwears ?

It’s a terrible gauge of the fact that the government is totally clueless. And powerless.

Cabinet members did not wear jackets to attend the weekly meeting Tuesday morning as part of the energy saving measures.

The temperature control of air conditioner of the meeting room was set at 26 Celsius degree to save the energy.

It was the first time that members of the Samak Cabinet wore only shirts without jackets to attend a meeting. (Nation)

International reserves : BOT mulls lower dollar weighting

A very interesting article about the international reserves and the way the Bank Of Thailand manages them.

Interesting because of course the composition of those reserves are top secret.

For that matter, it’s necessary to take with a pinch (a big one) of salt what the central bank is saying.

The Bank of Thailand is considering gradually readjusting the currency blend of its international reserves again - after it had first done so in 2002 – for long-term objectives, not short-term trends.

“We would not change it [the reserve structure] because of the currency trend – by unloading the dollar when it depreciates and hurrying to buy it when it is stronger,” senior director Pongpen Ruengvirayudh said last week.

The remix will be based mainly on economic fundamentals rather than the fluctuating value of the greenback, she said.

A rather idiotic reasoning. The trend of USD is everything. USD is an economic fundamental. If like many other institutions and individuals around the world, the BOT thinks that the USD is likely to continue its decline… for core reasons, then the BOT will do like other : unload.

If not, then the BOT should shut up and continue to buy USD…

It’s like if they want to say that they believe that the USD is doomed, but their actions would not be linked to the faith of USD, but to some “long term objectives”.

It’s political correctness applied to the matted world of central banks.

The US dollar will be progressively reduced and other currencies increased to fit with Thailand’s trading partner structure. The Kingdom’s exports to the US have declined, while trade payments in dollar terms have fallen.

The central bank will act in accordance with long-term prospects, not depending on the cycle of the dollar, she emphasised. The dollar trend has only a slight impact on the decision.

The central bank has steadily unweighted the dollar in its foreign reserves since 2002 after it dropped the fixed exchange rate in 1997.

Another blatant lie. In 2006-2007, the BOT bought dollars on a massive scale ! To curb the appreciation of the THB, and to save the Private Exports. Look at the chart… There is no discussion. And this policy was heavily critisized because of its huge cost (plus the bond problem, “sterilization” process, read here).

The central bank no longer needs to hold lots of dollars under the current floating exchange rate regime, unlike during the era of the basket of currencies, when it needed to collect dollars in large amounts.

“We’ll change it in accordance with the country’s economic structure. Don’t expect that when the dollar is up, we’ll turn back to hold the dollar like we did before,” she said.

Earlier, Governor Tarisa Watanagase said the central bank has been steadily dumping the dollar until now it is lower than other central banks’ average level of about 60 per cent.

Shipments to the US have slumped from 21 per cent to 17 per cent of the Kingdom’s total exports after traders turned to other markets. (Nation)

Again, what are they trying to say ? This idea that international reserves must be linked to the structure of exports and the trading partners is… rather new.

So if Thailand exports products to Zimbabwe and is paid in Zimbabwe Dollars, then Thailand should keep a stash of Zimbabwe Dollars in its international reserves ?

My analysis : it’s PR bullshit packed into confused rhetoric. The BOT wants to stop buying USD (at last !), but like other central banks if they say it too loudly then there is a risk that the USD would go down even quicker.

And meanwhile, the oil (paid in USD) is going to make a huge hole into the trade balance of Thailand (it started already, with a trade deficit of 3 billions USD in the first four months)

Bottom line : THB could go up. But the trade deficit could alleviate the upward pressure…

The game remains open.

Scrap sex education to “promote good conscience and morality”

According to Air Chief Marshal Weerawit Khong-sak, the deputy director of the Centre for the Promotion of National Strength on Moral Ethics and Values, or the Moral Centre, secondary-school sex education should be replaced by courses that “install good values for parenthood”.

Speaking at a Moral Centre 2008-2009 strategy seminar, he says the group will campaign for the lear-ning of nationalism and standard virtues in an “age-appropriate manner”. Sex education should be replaced by family studies and community activities, he adds.

“Sex education is not so effective because youths still don’t understand sexuality and many have underage sex. The solution is to promote good conscience and morality. We propose that sex education be replaced with family studies at secondary level,” he says. (Daily Xpress)

Centre for the Promotion of National Strength on Moral Ethics and Values ? And managed by… military personnel ?

It’s getting better and better.

Websites, censorship : “We just cited the criminal laws to ban them”

Bangkok Pundit has an astonishing piece about an interview given by the new IT Minister to a thai radio, after some websites were banned.

Scary stuff.

Here are some quotes, but you should read the whole article.

Bottom line : the thai authorities spent a lot of time to design special “security laws” that give them huge power. But actually, it’s for the show. They don’t respect the laws. They just “cite” them in order to obtain immediate and full “cooperation” from thai websites …

For instance, to ban a website the government must seek an authorization from a judge… That seems fair. But actually this story is good for the stupid foreigners. Good for the show.

A real thai politician has another -and efficient- method : he just takes his phone, to threaten people with legal action.

By the way, the interview is riddled with errors and blatant lies.

Even if you take in account some translation issues, again, what the Minister dares to say in public is really scary and show the poor, very poor level of the people currently in control (to be fair, it was exactly the same with the Junta).

China, Burma, Thailand… and actually most of asian countries : they don’t give a rat shit about freedom of expression and other evil western ideas.

All those gentlemen (in uniform or not), with different cultures and languages, share exactly the same brain pattern : “you are free to think… like me” along with what I call the “fuckyoupolicy”. You dare to disagree ? “Fuck you” is their common answer.

With a smile of course…

We blocked both messages and images. In fact, we have been doing this for a week. In most cases, it is difficult since the webhosting service providers are located outside the country.[...]

During the APEC ministerial meeting in Bangkok, I talked with their Minister, and then Mr. David Cross, a diplomat from Washington. They knew the administration of Google and understood Thai culture. They knew well how we felt. After that contact, the content disappeared.[...]

No, no longer on either Google or YouTube, I mean they are not available in Thailand. But of course, they cannot deny the access to the content worldwide.[...]

There are more than 200 internet service providers in Thailand, and we, and CAT know them all. So if they are in Thailand, we can deal with them because we have the law. I have to thank Khun Patchara and Khun Wisuth for reading out the penalty, they deserve it if they are not loyal.[...]

Yes, I just ordered them closed. Of course, we understand that it is inappropriate to use the term, and it would be more pleasing to say we asked for cooperation. But they know what “asking for cooperation” means.[...]

We just cited the criminal laws to ban them.

They have content about the monarchy. Thai people cannot bear this, and no one can. Not just me or my officers. Even the former ICT Minister, Sitthichai Pokaiyaudom, once he was informed about this, he asked me to ban them. And he would encourage folk who have the knowledge to hack the websites. Everyone is helping us. Even operators of internet services who have the knowledge in hacking also help us. [...]

Inflation : NESDB revises its forecast… +5,3 to 5,8 % in 2008

March 11
The agency also maintains the inflation target at 3.2-3.7 per cent. Despite the skyrocketing prices in the first quarter, NESDB believes that prices would fall in the second quarter. It is favourable if the first quarter inflation could be kept at 5 per cent.

I wrote then : “See you in the second quarter folks”…

May 26
Loosing face must have some limits. So the NESDB revises, at last, its forecast. It “has increased its inflationary target from between 3.2 and 3.7 per cent, to between 5.3 and 5.8 per cent“ (TOC).

Do I dare to play it again ? Yes.

“See you in the third quarter folks”. !

The inflation tsunami is on the move.

Stats : 122 262 work permit holders (BOI, february 2008)

Reading a very funny piece from the boiler room (“Japanese expatriates lift rental market”, Nation), I found -at last- what seems to be a very precise figure regarding the number of foreigners working in Thailand (work permit holders).

I say what “seems” because actually it’s very difficult to find out. On one hand, we can assume that the thai authorities have detailed statistics (how many tourist visas ? how many visas for foreigners married to thais, for foreign retirees, how many work permits etc.), on the other hand they are very careful to not communicate on these matters.

Like if they were afraid… Anyway.

The Japanese comprise the largest group of work-permit holders in Thailand. As of February, 24,740 of 122,262 BOI and temporary work-permit holders were Japanese, approximately 20 per cent of the total, the Labour Ministry said.

BOI is the Board of Investment. The BOI is able to grant “privileges” (tax incentives, fast track for work permits, and other goodies etc.) to companies working for export.

But a regular company, without BOI, can of course apply for one or several work permits.

It’s not clear what Nation calls “temporary work permits” (all work permits are temporary !)…

My point : this figure could be the total number of work permits issued for companies under BOI (only).

A quick search gives other figures in the past : “The government has put a cap on alien workers, allowing only those 568,249 registered to work last year to renew their work permits, Labour Minister Dej Boonlong said yesterday.” (august 2002).

Another article (25 may 2002) seems to confirm my theory :

The Board of Investment’s one-stop service centre for visas and work permits processed 13 per cent more applications during the first quarter of this year than during the same period in 2001, said Supat Limpaporn, acting executive senior investment adviser at the agency.

The number of applications processed has also risen significantly over the past two years, from 94,888 in 2000 to more than 115,000 last year. this year.

To summarize : BOI apparently manages directly around 120 000 work permits… But the total number of (regular) work permits would be around 570 000.

[if you have other leads or informations related to these issues, don't hesitate to send me an email]

Joke of the day : let’s patent the… full moon party

The Joke Of The Day Award goes -at the unanimity of votes- to the Commerce Minister, AKA “The Great Deflator” (read here).

After fighting inflation by reducing the price of… toothpaste, the Minister has had another great idea :

Commerce Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Mingkwan Saengsuwan said on Sunday he plans to patent the full moon party — an idea which an intellectual property law expert calls “impractical”.

Mr Mingkwan said he had instructed his officials to patent the full moon party, to prevent other countries from copying Thailand’s famous festival.

The all-night beach bash is held each full moon on the tourist island of Koh Phangan, off Surat Thani province. The party draws large numbers of young foreign tourists – as well as drug sellers and users.

The idea of copyrighting the full moon party, the minister said, came to him after he learned that Singapore had organised a similar party on its artificial island of Sentosa. (Bangkok Post)

Of course, any law expert could say that : “Patenting the full moon party as a Thai tourism product was also impossible because the words “full moon” and “party” are generic names anyone can use, Mr Jade said.“

Just another proof of the low, very low level of thai politicians.

It’s hopeless…

Chart, banks deposits, % of monthly growth, until march 2008

Here is an update of my chart about deposits in banks, with february and march datas.

Source BOT.

Deposits = current, saving and time deposits.

We are up again, with + 2,9 % in march, compare to march 2007.

The situation up country is improving : after a fall and negative growth  (year-on-year) each month since july 2007… we are coming back in positive territory with a modest +0,9 % in march, year-on-year.

Disclaimer : as you may know, the Bank Of Thailand has totally revamped its website…

The new interface to get and download the datas is awfull. It’s now impossible to download like before a whole excell file with all the datas… You need to choose month per month for instance.

And the table I used for this chart has been dropped.

Following bank deposits in Bangkok and up country with the new table will require a lot of work (again)… Anyway, I will do it.

Sugar market : higher prices for everyone, subsidy debt to be repaid, and farmers don’t earn money

As you may know, the gvt allowed a 37 % increase of price of sugar.

This article of TNA gives other interesting details about this totally distorted market. So distorted and weird that it should be taught in school…

I will try to summarize :

-consumers and businesses are hit hard with an increase of 5 THB per kilo ( + 37 % )
-The Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Coopperatives suffers a debt of 24 billions (because of years of subsidy of sugarcane farming)
-The surgacane growers don’t earn money, even with the price hike (because their costs have increased dramatically)

Talk about a serie of economic non-senses !

Those with a sweet tooth who prefer to put plenty of sugar in their coffee might start having to think twice and become sugar-free, after the government agreed to increase sugar price by 5 Baht per kilogram. The government’s decision will likely have a grave effect on consumers and sweetmeat sellers.

A sweetmeat vendor said “Obviously our production cost has risen. We have less profit.”

Although the sugar price hike has caused trouble for sellers, it has great benefit not only for sugarcane growers —who have suffered from low prices for many years—but also the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Coopperatives or BAAC.

“As currently the BAAC has subsidised 24 billion baht to help with sugarcane farming, each increased 5 Baht per kilogram of sugar sold will go to BAAC. It is estimated it will take 5 years for BAAC to clear existing debts.” said Akachai Ariyamongkonchai Deputy Secretary General Cane Planters Association For Zone 7.

For sugarcane growers, the price rise is as high as 700 to 807 baht per ton. Still, they cannot break even. One rai can grow cane at a maximum of 12 tons, which means they get the most income of 9,684 Baht per rai. The growing cost is high, at 10,000 baht per rai, especially when chemical products and other materials are higher the price due to the oil price hike.

Anchalee Chamnongkol Sugarcane grower said “It’s great that the government has increased the sugar price but it can’t cover our growing costs anyway.” (TNA)

How to kill the thai internet industry ? Owner of free picture-hosting site arrested

Police arrested the owner of a free picture-hosting website after police traced pictures of a woman having sex with her ex-boyfriend to the site.

Siriporn Suwanpithak, 26, was arrested at his company in Pathum Thani.

He said he did not know that his site, www.212cafe.com was used to host the pictures of the woman.

The woman has filed complaints with police that her ex-boyfriend distributed her pictures taken while having sex with him on Internet.

The ex-boyfriend has been earlier arrested.

Police traced the sources of the pictures and found that they were hosted on Siriporn’s free-service site. (Nation)

Congratulations to the thai authorities. To arrest someone, as the owner of a hosting company, because some pictures -with no link with the owner- were hosted on the website… is simply astonishing.

I mean, if it was a least a political story (like the 29 websites accused of lese-majeste)… but here it’s just a ridiculous case.

And it will without any doubt send a clear sign to the thai internet industry : GET OUT ! Leave the country.

Potentially, all the thai public websites, located in Thailand, are threatened. Just upload a naughty picture… then complain to the police… Et voila.

Fertilizers : freeze of prices… for a short period

Fertiliser producers yesterday agreed to temporarily freeze their retail prices for a few weeks to help reduce the burden on farmers.

After meeting with farmers and the Internal Trade Department, Plengsakdi Prakaspesat, president of the Thai Fertiliser and Agricultural Marketing Association, said that producers could only freeze prices for a short period as they are also facing rising raw-material costs. (Nation)

More non sense… More bullshit aimed at pathetic PR (like when the Commerce Minister was happy to “freeze” the price of toothpaste). What means temporarily ? Short period ?

The bottom line is that fertilizers are made entirely from oil… oil prices are going up… fertilizers prices follow and will continue to follow.

Prasit Boonchuey, president of the Thai Farmers Association, said that farmers have seen a rise in production costs due to costly fertilisers and pesticides. Against Bt13,000 per tonne early this year, fertilisers now cost Bt21,000 to Bt22,000 per tonne.

UPDATE MAY 26
It smells bad for the little government’s PR operation : “But the  government may find it hard to control inflation as seven leading fertiliser manufacturers are seeking Commerce Ministry approval for price increases of up to 250 per cent for 104 fertiliser formulas.” (Nation)