Links to my articles on bangkokpost.com (will open in new tab)

Do you owe income tax in Thailand?
If you stay more than 180 days in any calendar year in Thailand, you are considered a Thai tax resident, and since the beginning of 2024, any money you remit, or bring into the country, is assessable for income tax.

Why Thai-Cambodian border conflict still festers
Duelling civilisations going back 1,000 years and a poorly drawn colonial map are to blame, says scholar

Thailand weighs casino legalisation
Lessons from Singapore, Las Vegas and beyond as uncertainty surrounds the stalled Entertainment Complex Bill

Aid cuts could affect US itself
“Armageddon” is the word veteran human rights campaigner Phil Robertson uses to describe the sudden shutdown of most of the US’ aid programmes around the world.

Vaping a way to cut smoking death toll?
Over the past 20 years, fewer than 100 people worldwide have died from vaping, while more than 100 million people have died from smoking regular cigarettes. In Thailand, the tobacco death toll is 71,000 people each year, and from vaping – zero. So why are cigarettes available in every convenience store, while e-cigarettes are banned?

‘Humans to blame’ for devastating floods in Northern Thailand
Campaigner Pianporn ‘Pai’ Deetes identifies three specific causes of the problem: deforestation, dams, and encroachment

Explainer: Thailand’s new visas
Details of the new 5-year ‘Destination Thailand’ visa, the 60-day entry stamp, and more

Reforestation seen as only viable smog solution
Animal agriculture, not fossil fuels, is becoming the biggest driver of climate change worldwide

New cannabis bill ‘restricts freedoms’
Activist rejects claim of many complaints

Ban wildlife trade to prevent next pandemic: campaigner
Freeland founder Steve Galster says trafficking in wildlife, both protected and legal, spreads zoonotic diseases

Respect nature, pleads wildlife trafficking cop
A deeper dive into Thailand’s illegal trafficking of wild animals, a lucrative industry worth US$20 billion

Bitcoin booms and crypto conundrums
Bitkub CEO ‘Topp’ Jirayut Srupsrisopa outlines the pitfalls and potential of blockchain-based assets

‘Superpimp’-turned-whistleblower won’t give up fight
Chuvit Kamolvisit, who says Thailand is corrupt to the core, advocates legalising gambling and sin taxes to top up junior police salaries

Fighting Thailand’s ‘scamdemic’
Industrial-scale online crime in ‘lawless’ border areas in neighbouring countries is growing in volume and sophistication

Feeding the beast: Chiang Mai smoke seen as world’s climate change problem
From Chiang Mai air pollution to global climate change, animal agriculture is the elephant in the room — and biochar one way to tame it.

Slaughtering the planet — on a farm
Many scientists say animal agriculture is a bigger driver of climate change than fossil fuels, contrary to popular belief (with video embeds)

How has Thailand kept the lid on Covid?
A panel of experts discusses how Thailand, the first country to record an infection outside China, managed to bring Covid-19 under control (with video embed)

Economist calls for ‘blanket rescue’
Bangkok Bank’s chief economist outlines his suggested response to the coronavirus pandemic (with video embed)

Dictating the internet
A new report unveils how governments manipulate tech laws to assault free speech

Reporter’s Notebook: Hong Kong protests – behind the barricade
My reflections after two months in Hong Kong (with video embed)

QuickWrap Newscast
A short summary of some of the week’s top stories (with video embed)

Exclusive interview with ILO director-general Guy Ryder
International Labour Organization chief waxes knowledgeable on everything from fishing slavery to AI (with video embed)

Exclusive interview with Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit
I spoke to the Thai billionaire opposition leader before the 2019 election (with video embeds)

Exclusive interview with Abhisit Vejjajiva
I spoke to the former Democrat leader and Thai prime minister a week before the 2019 election (with video embed)

Political explainer: Thailand’s Senate
I describe the complicated, carefully engineered appointment mechanisms for the Thai Senate (with video embed)

China’s heavenly nature
My ‘B’ magazine cover story about Mount Qingcheng, a verdant wonderland known as the historical birthplace of Taoism (with video embed)
See print story

Prachuap Khiri Khan by big bike
I joined a motorcycle tour of one of Thailand’s most beautiful provinces
See print story

Jungle Aid
A Hua Hin-based NGO provides a lifeline to poor Karen villagers

Rabies epidemic is ‘fake news’
Animal activists decry hysteria

Festive skydining
Paid advertorial for a Bangkok restaurant (under pseudonym)

Europe tightens curbs with economic toll worsening: Virus update
An example of how I use embeds to enrich wire stories

The post Bangkok Post stories appeared first on Dave Kendall.

 

Bangkok Bank chief economist Burin Adulwattana speaks at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand on March 18, 2020.  (Photo by Jonathan Head)

Handouts of “helicopter money”, blanket debt repayment postponements and massive fiscal stimulus programmes are needed to keep Thailand and the rest of the world afloat during the coronavirus pandemic, according to Bangkok Bank’s chief economist.

Speaking via a live stream at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand in Bangkok on Wednesday, Burin Adulwattana painted a grim picture, predicting global growth could fall to 2.4% this year, and possibly as low as 1.5%, while Thai growth could slide beneath 1%.

Drastic interest rate cuts have failed to stop the free fall in markets worldwide and inject precious liquidity, he said. The service industry — a huge part of the Thai and global economy — is grinding to a halt as countries go into lockdown.

The level of uncertainty is unprecedented in the modern era, surpassing that of the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the 2008 global crash. The uncertainty is exacerbated by the hazy picture delivered by patchy health statistics: because testing has been so limited worldwide, we don’t know how quickly the novel coronavirus is spreading, let alone its future transmission rates.

For instance, Sophon Iamsirithavorn, chief of the Communicable Disease Division, this week estimated that anywhere between 400,000 and 37.4 million Thais would be infected with SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes the Covid-19 disease, by the end of 2021, with a death rate “of less than 2%”. But how much less? The actual figure, according to Stanford professor John PA Ioannidis, is likely to be closer to 0.3% or lower. The study looked at the only place where 100% of people were tested — the Diamond Princess, with a large proportion of elderly guests — and applied it to the age structure of the general US population. The resulting estimate for the death rate was only 0.125%.

If scientific projections of the deadliness of this disease vary so widely, how can we chart an economic course? We do know that the cost to the Thai, Asian and global economies has already been severe. Thailand, Mr Burin said, is a “3D” economy — beset by Disease, Drought and Delay in the budget. Some 20% of the kingdom’s GDP comes from tourism but arrivals have fallen by three-quarters, while those from China have dropped 85%. Private sector confidence is down, and because many factories have excess capacity as a result of the US-China trade war, he said, private investment will slow.

Unlike the Asian financial crisis of 1997 and the global crash of 2008, this crisis did not emanate from the banking sector — but it could spread there, Mr Burin said.

“There’s a real possibility that the problems could move from tourism, travel and hospitality into the banking sector. It’s the opposite of 2008. The government has to put out the fire.”

Even if the virus is brought under control in the next few months, the economist said, the hit to the economy from lost services transactions is permanent: if you can’t get a haircut for four months, you don’t run out and get four haircuts when you can, and you don’t order multiple meals from a restaurant to make up for the ones you missed.

So what can the Thai government do? Mr Burin said he expected the Bank of Thailand (BoT) to cut its benchmark interest rate from the current record low of 1% to just 0.5% at its next meeting, although he thinks policy rates here will not drop to zero or even negative territory, as in Europe. But he pointed out that all the trillions of dollars in quantitative easing to boost liquidity around the world in recent weeks have failed to calm the markets.

“You can’t cut interest rates to kill the coronavirus epidemic. You can’t make people suddenly feel healthy enough to go out and spend and start drinking. That’s not going to happen.”

Mr Burin foresees a global scenario of empty shops, bankrupt shopping malls, closed-down hotels and insolvent airlines. Meanwhile a lockdown scenario, he said, could be catastrophic for ordinary Thais.

“What are we going to do if people are unable to leave their houses and go to work? What if you have mortgages? What if you are a shop owner and have to pay rent? What happens if you need income to pay for your credit card?

“No amount of interest rate cuts, no amount of liquidity is going to be able to solve this problem.”

The only answer, he said, is fiscal, not monetary — governments must open their wallets to help their citizens.

“When life comes to a standstill, the government has to play its part [and say] ‘Don’t worry about your debt payment now, all will be taken care of.'”

The Bangkok Bank expert said recently-issued BoT guidelines for major banks to offer piecemeal debt restructuring were too vague and would take too long to implement on a client-by-client basis. “You have to do a blanket rescue like they are doing in Italy or France. Better you save everyone for three months.”

Mr Burin said that unlike heavily indebted countries like Japan, Thailand’s relatively low debt-to-GDP ratio leaves room for fiscal stimulus. But despite the urgency, he sounded a note of caution, warning that debt relief and what he termed “helicopter money” giveaways can only be a short-term solution.

“How long can they keep on printing money and save the whole country? This is going to be a big problem over the next few months.”

The problem then, he added, would be weaning the population off government handouts.

Despite the bleak picture, Mr Burin believes the pandemic will end sooner rather than later.

He hopes that rising temperatures will mean the crisis will largely have passed by July. “As Churchill said, no point being a pessimist.”

The post Economist urges ‘blanket’ rescue appeared first on Dave Kendall.

Links to stories in this week’s show:

• Insurgents attack security checkpoint in Yala, 15 killed
• Prosecutors arraign Bangkok bombings suspects in court
• Bank of Thailand cuts interest rate to record low
• More victims join fight against extortion by copyright agents
• Thai English skills dip for third year

The post QuickWrap podcast appeared first on Dave Kendall.

Links to the stories in this week’s programme:

• Supreme Court upholds death sentences of 2014 Koh Tao murders
• Prayut, cabinet members receive King’s message
• Teacher transferred over school lunch reinstated 
• Arrest warrants for two gold heist suspects
• Drug courier crashes pickup in heavy rain

The post QuickWrap Newscast appeared first on Dave Kendall.

My exclusive interview with Guy Rider, Director-General of the International Labour Organization, on July 29, 2019.

See the online version and video

The post Allow unions, says ILO chief appeared first on Dave Kendall.

The post Vote for prime minister appeared first on Dave Kendall.

My report on a panel discussion at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand in Bangkok on June 1, 2019.

See the online version

The post Thai activists face ‘risk of jail, death’ appeared first on Dave Kendall.

My exclusive interview with former Democrat leader and Thai prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva on March 15, 2019.

See online article and video

The post Abhisit ok working with military appeared first on Dave Kendall.

The post FCCT post-election panel appeared first on Dave Kendall.

The post Election aftermath: who will govern Thailand? appeared first on Dave Kendall.