Business News
Thailand business news, market trends, foreign investment, and economic updates—stay informed on stock market movements, entrepreneurship, and key developments shaping the economy. Get the latest from The Thaiger, your trusted source for business news in Thailand.
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Sponsored 5 ways retirees in Thailand lose money (and how to stop it)
Retiring in Thailand can be affordable and enjoyable, but many retirees lose money due to common mistakes. High living costs, scams, and unexpected expenses can quickly drain savings. There are five ways that retirees in Thailand can lose money and...
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Business Buzz: Creating sales funnels with social media
PHUKET: Following up on last week, now that you have a plan, know your target market and understand the importance of your biggest asset – your database, we are going to look at how the customer experience is created through your sales funnel. Many people do not fully understand the role and importance of a sales funnel as a whole…
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Business: East coast shopping
PHUKET: Choice, and lots of it, is what Phuket’s cosmopolitan consumers are demanding, and as the shopping scene transforms to adapt to more local-centric lifestyles among the island’s international community, smaller family-oriented malls are taking shape across the island. Leading the way in bringing a more upmarket shopping experience is shopping and lifestyle guru Kanittha Prasopsirikul, managing director of ‘By…
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Business Buzz: Building your database
PHUKET: This week, let me explain the biggest asset your social media marketing efforts will build for you: your database. A marketing database is an electronic list of all of your potential customers, with as much relevant information as you can gather about them. Normally, this is combined with a platform that can be used to communicate automatically on a…
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Finance: Bond investor survival guide
PHUKET: It’s inevitable that interest rates will eventually rise, but what do rising interest rates mean for investors and how can you prepare your portfolio? First of all, here is what you need to consider or be concerned about: INTEREST RATES AND BONDS When interest rates rise, prices of fixed rate bonds will fall (and vice versa) because no one…
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Finance: Cycling the bull market
PHUKET: As the bull market in global stocks continues in the worst economic environment for a bull market within my lifetime, I find it reassuring to turn to those with some of the most impressive track records in the world of investing and trading. Have things changed this time? Is the new era of central bank money printing going to…
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Lighthouse Weekend Market a boon to businesses
PHUKET: The new addition of a mini-motor expo at the Lighthouse Weekend Market last month produced four on-the-spot car sales, tagging the event as a business generator on Phuket – one in so much demand that it will continue through the rainy season. The cars that sold were Mini Cooper, Volvo and Subaru models, confirmed Kanittha Prasopsirikul, market organizer and…
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Business Buzz: Re-make marketing plans
PHUKET: We all know that social media marketing is popular, but how can we best use it for our business to increase awareness, grow our customer base, make more sales and improve profitability? Targeting people using social media is easy if done correctly, but to be successful and get the best results, you need a blueprint to make sure everything…
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Thanyapura to boost ‘Sports Hub of Asia’ status with B300mn investment
PHUKET: Thanyapura Phuket is looking to invest an additional 300 million baht in an expansion plan that will further strengthen its status as the Sports Hub of Asia. To be scaled over five years, the investment will see the spectacular 23-hectare complex gain a 100-meter training pool, four tennis courts, a multi-room Wellness Center, an international school working toward becoming…
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Business Buzz: Successfully harness social media power
PHUKET: There is no doubting the power of social media marketing as a business tool. The question is, are you using it, and if so, are you doing so effectively? Social media can be very overwhelming as there are so many options it can be difficult to know where to start. It can also be a case of ‘you don’t…
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Finance: One size does not fit all
PHUKET: When it comes to financial advice, my first words of caution to everyone are “never, ever, do anything yourself that you don’t understand 100%”. If the markets seem too complex, there is no reason you can’t handle your financial affairs without using this tool. Every asset class at the end of the day is just that: a tool. There…
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Chanintr Living launches month-long Phuket sale
PHUKET: Chanintr Living has launched a month-long sale at its classy imported furniture outlet in Phuket, providing islanders and visitors the chance to grab quality furniture at a knocked down price. Chanintr Living was established in 1994 and has several outlets in Bangkok and Singapore, as well as one multi-brand location in Phuket. The reputable dealer’s current sale, from May…
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Business Buzz: Get visual with Pinterest
PHUKET: This week I thought we would cover something that would be of benefit to many businesses in Phuket. We are very fortunate that we are surrounded by scenic beauty, which is one of the reasons Phuket has a thriving tourism industry, plus a lot of adventure and outdoor activities. And what better way to promote your business than to…
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HK Express takes flight in Phuket market
PHUKET: Hong Kong’s low-fare airline has seen significant first-quarter growth as it continues its campaign to woo both the Thai and expat markets in Phuket. HK Express has carried close to 500,000 passengers in the first quarter of this year, which represents a 102 percent growth compared with the same period in 2014. The airline reports total passengers for March…
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New Banyan Tree Phuket hotel manager “at home’
PHUKET: Hery Kuswoyo has taken the helm as the hotel manager for Banyan Tree Phuket, the Banyan Tree group’s flagship property. Mr Kuswoyo joined the Banyan Tree family in 2010 as the Food and Beverage Executive Assistant Manager for Banyan Tree Bangkok. Prior to joining the Phuket team, he was the executive assistant manager for Banyan Tree Macau – the…
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Finance: Sometimes you can buy happiness
PHUKET: I recently read a study about buying experiences versus material things and their relative effects on happiness. Interestingly, studies show that money only increases happiness up to a certain point, and buying experiences can have a longer effect on happiness than buying material things, even though the ‘things’ will be around for a substantial amount of time. The reason…
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Business Buzz: Steal your Facebook
PHUKET: With the advent of social media and its meteoric rise in popularity, technology has grown at a rate much faster and in ways that the law has not been able to keep up with or envisage. Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram and Pinterest now have billions of users. There are a couple of areas in particular…
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Visionary dentist bridges gap in Phuket dental market
PHUKET: Medical tourism and the hordes of foreign customers it brings to Thailand and Phuket’s shores is on a steady rise, with the Tourism Authority of Thailand reporting more than 2.5 million international patients travelling to the Kingdom for treatments in 2012 and predicting an increase of 13% per annum. One dental clinic conglomerate, Dental Corporation Co Ltd, started filling…
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Finance: Exchange rate rigmarole
PHUKET: An issue most Phuket expats deal with in one form or another is exposure to some risk of fluctuations in currency exchange rates. Many earn money outside of the country and then need to convert that to baht for spending purposes. Offshore oil workers are a good example of this, and how best to deal with this situation can…
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Business Buzz: Outsourcing – Imagine hiring an expert from 150 baht
PHUKET: I remember when I started in this industry just how much there was to learn and how many different things I needed to do to get started: build websites, get a domain, hosting, design a logo, create an exciting intro logo, set up social media accounts, start promoting – the list goes on and on! I understand the challenges…
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Finance: Cashing in on retirement
PHUKET: Generating an income in retirement beyond any pension or government-sponsored retirement plan has become much harder in today’s low-interest-rate environment. The income from defined pensions and even retirement benefits from government-sponsored plans are no longer a sure thing. However, there are strategies that help to maximize income during retirement: Dividend-paying stocks or exchange-traded funds (ETFs) Dividend paying stocks are…
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Business Buzz: Cashing in on Google’s greed
PHUKET: When asked what Google is, most people answer ‘where to find things’, while the more technically minded reply ‘a search engine’. Google’s own mission statement is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. What many people do not realize is the true dominance that Google already has in the online world. Put simply, Google…
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Neighborhood electric vehicle market thrives on luxury resort island
PHUKET: The numerous luxury resorts in Phuket has helped grow Southern Thailand’s golf cart and other neighborhood electric vehicle (NEV) market, which is now in a dead heat with the Central Region, Ekasit Kunanantakul, managing director of Global Electric Motorcars Asia Company, said in an exclusive interview with the Phuket Gazette. Global Electric Motorcars, now 12 years old, was among…
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Business Buzz: Blogging me bonkers with business
PHUKET: A blog in its simplest form is a website that gets updated regularly. The only real difference to a ‘normal’ website is the frequency with which it is updated or changed. My preferred working blog is a combination of the traditional website with a blog or news page included, so that it covers the best of both worlds and…
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Finance: Understanding capital
PHUKET: I often write and talk to my clients about what actually moves most major asset classes, as understanding this is essential to choosing wise, and poor, investments at given times during the longer-term cycles. Capital is always the culprit, and it determines the direction prices will move as it flows into and out of any asset class, such as…
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Business Buzz: Twitter – Instant marketing, tweets of success
PHUKET: Twitter was created in 2006 by Jack Dorsey and Noah Glass as a method of using SMS to give status updates to all of your friends in your address book, but without the cost or time used sending individual messages. This has morphed into what is now a multi-billion dollar company with 232 million monthly users. What started out…
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Finance: Paying for education
PHUKET: By far the biggest potential financial-headache for a young expatriate family is paying for the cost of an expat child’s education. After all, even large multinationals are increasingly scoffing at hiring expatriates with children or offering pay packages that include paying the full costs of international school fees, which can easily top 325,000 baht to 650,000 baht or more…
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Finance: UK’s ever-shifting goalposts affecting Phuket expats, retirees
PHUKET: The UK government is continuing to shake things up for retirees and expatriate workers trying to make long-term plans for the post-work future with yet another shift of the goalposts, one of many in recent months. The most dramatic change announced in the new budget, to go into effect next year, is the reduction in lifetime allowance to one…
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Phuket expats better buckle up – more changes for UK pension plans
PHUKET: THE UK government is continuing to shake things up for retirees and expatriate workers trying to make long-term plans for the post-work future with yet another shift of the goalposts, one of many in recent months. The most dramatic change announced in the new budget, to go into effect next year, is the reduction in lifetime allowance to one…
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Business Buzz: Facebook – unlimited sales potential at our fingertips
PHUKET: Marketing 101: to make money you need customers, and to get customers you need a database to market to. The better quality the database, the better the results. But we will come back to that in a minute… These days everyone has heard of Facebook. Most people who are even mildly computer literate have a Facebook profile, no matter…
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Finance: Drop in oil prices can be a good thing
PHUKET: When it comes to investing, many make it more complicated than it actually is. What I try to do is use common sense and simplify the process. The two big factors driving global markets right now are central banks and the drop in oil prices. Banks have been pumping trillions of dollars into the global financial system ever since…
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