In the news

Terrorism policy to be revamped

Thai Reinsurance is preparing to launch a repackaged terrorism insurance policy for local businesses.

The new package to be launched next week, possibly called a "political violence insurance policy", would provide simple, stand-alone comprehensive coverage of property damage caused during strikes, riots, civil unrest and terrorism, said Surachai Sirivallop, chief executive of Thai Re to Bangkok Post.

“Thailand is no longer the same in the perspective of international reinsurers. [The political] climate has changed, and the risk has changed,” said Mr Surachai. “We also don’t know what’s going to happen in the future, as we expect the red shirts are likely to go underground in fighting the government.”

Mr Surachai said the premium charge for a new stand-alone policy would vary from 0.5% to 3% of the sum insured based on the location’s risk profile, the sum insured and the size of the property.

Source: Bangkok Post

Smiles suspended

For decades, Thailand was the exception in south-east Asia. It retained its democracy while neighbours fell to communism or militarism. In a region where heavy-handed state restriction was the norm, its more open economy gave international investors access to the lucrative possibilities of an emerging market.

But in the "land of smiles", the carefully nurtured façade of social harmony and economic progress hid a widening social and political gulf, and an economic slowdown that has grown harder to gloss over, according to Financial Times.

Average economic growth in the past decade has been just 4.5 per cent – dwarfed by China’s 10.6 per cent and even Indonesia’s 5.1 per cent. In these figures there is a sense of lost opportunity. Thailand was always going to be the next to follow the path to prosperity blazed by Taiwan and South Korea.

Recently, however, parts of Bangkok looked more like the next Afghanistan.

"What is of most concern to investors is what is going on in the developed world. In emerging markets, even where things are happening, as in Thailand, investors are prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt," says Philip Poole, global head of emerging markets research at HSBC, the UK bank.

Source: Financial Times

Villa Medica building B400m resort

Villa Medica (Thailand), a subsidiary of the residential developer Nusasiri, has invested 400 million baht to build a boutique resort and hospital in Phuket.

The resort called offer alternative medicine, conventional medicine, surgery, spa therapy as well as rehabilitation. It will have 172 boutique resort rooms on 76 rai and the remaining plot will hold other facilities including a two-storey hospital.

Source: Bangkok Post