Business and Economy

Whoops, no internet

Internet connections to and from Thailand have always been, hmm, somewhat in need of improvement, but now it looks like the recent earthquake off Taiwan has done the same to the country's digital communication infrastructure that the Bank of Thailand has done for its international economic standing. The Bangkok Post quotes CAT Telecom (Thailand's Internet regulator and monopoly operator of the country's international gateway) as saying it will be the end of February before full bandwith is restored, although immediate efforts are underway to mitigate the worst of the damage.

The International Herald Tribune has a report titled "Earthquake knocks Asia back to phone age, and beyond" giving an overview of the general situation in Southeast Asia.

FWIW I haven't noticed any problems from Europe, but the sites I've been accessing may not be physically located in Thailand. Posting on some Thailand-related forums seems to be reduced, but that may be due to the holiday season.

Update: having said that, I am having difficulty accessing the website of a major bank in Singapore.

This Metro System was brought to you by the Government of Japan

Bangkok is famous for its traffic jams, which occur partly because until fairly recently the city didn't have a public transport system worth squat. Unless you count the buses, the network of which is cunningly designed so that they sit in the same traffic jams as the rest of the traffic.

Since 1999 however it has the Skytrain (currently two lines), and since 2004 a shiny new metro line, which help somewhat but only cover a limited area of the city and haven't yet reached that critical mass which makes it useful for getting from any given Point A to the respective point B. Indeed, for a multi-million-populated megacity (officially the population is around 6 million) the trains on both systems are remarkably short, with just three or four carriages. Also both Skytrain and Metro are comparatively expensive, and unless you happen to be travelling between two locations within walking distance of stations, a taxi will not be much more expensive (and for two or more people is probably the cheaper option).

Surprise: currency regulations relaxed, a little

Well, that was a surprise. Stockmarket plunges (according to different sources the worst fall in its 31-odd year history, since 1987's infamous Black Monday, or since the 1990 invasion of Kuwait), and already whatever the regulation thingies were which were announced on Monday, they have now been relaxed somewhat.

In other news it has been revealed that Thailand's fiscal policy is run with the aid of a Magic 8-ball.

Foreign Exchange Regulations

How to annoy your foreign and domestic investors without really achieving the desired results: slap a 1 year 30% deposit regulation on incoming capital to try and dampen short-term currency speculation, sit back and enjoy the confusion. There's an official communique from the Bank of Thailand here. Although not mentioned in the communique, indications are that this affects transactions of US$20,000 and above; and currency movements for non-speculative purposes (international trade etc.) are not directly affected, although it looks like there might be some onerous new bureaucracy to prove that transactions are not, in fact, speculative.

As usual, when the precise details emerge it will probably turn out to be not quite as bad as it sounds, with significant collateral damage just for a few innocent parties and otherwise varying levels of inconvenience for everyone else.

Interesting though what the BoT intends to do with any profits accrued from the compulsory deposits:

7. The earnings received from this measure would be earmarked for public benefits.

Hmm.