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 Why retirees in Thailand are choosing long-term health insurance over quick fixes
Retirees in Thailand are increasingly seeing the importance of health insurance in protecting their well-being during retirement. With insurance requirements for retirement visas and rising healthcare costs, many are moving away from short-term plans and choosing long-term coverage. Long-term health...
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Finance: Impact of gap years on your finances
PHUKET: As the Phuket Gazette‘s managing editor is imminently departing on his possibly crazy adventure to wherever the dice will take him, I thought it might be a good time to discuss gap years and how they tie in to your long-term financial well-being. There are two main types of gap years. The first is either before, or immediately following…
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Video is the future of digital ads
PHUKET: Digital ad spend is projected to be 9.9 billion baht this year, up almost 25 per cent from last year as a direct result of advertisers shifting from traditional media like print and television to digital media and online marketing. This is believed to be partly because of the cheaper cost of digital advertising and partly because it’s much…
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Finance: The right time to get back into the stock market
PHUKET: While all of my long term clients (and myself) have been in cash for some time, there will be a time to get back into the stock market, but when will that be? To recap recent market action: major United States and global indices have already moved higher off their panic February lows, led by retail, gold, materials and…
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Local fishermen dish out ‘fishy’ details
PHUKET: Anchovies may be small fry, but they are big business for some fishermen operating out of Phuket’s main fishing port. Known locally as ‘pla ching chang’, anchovies have been a steady source of income for the last 40 years for fishing boat owner Kumnueng Dumead. However, business is not always plain sailing, especially during the rainy season. “During the…
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Cold business for Songkran
PHUKET: Songkran can be a lucrative time of year for the island’s ice makers as sales rise with the summer heat. Many revellers load barrels onto pick-up trucks, filling them up with water and a big block of ice. In fact, Songkran ice sales are a good barometer for measuring the state of the tourism industry on the island, according…
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Finance: Understanding Counter Trend Rallies
PHUKET: In early March, US and global markets began a short-term counter trend rally that has seen these markets regain about 50 per cent of their prior decline. However, there are reasons you need to remain cautious by staying largely in cash. The stock market began to rally in 2009, hitting an all-time high last summer. Since then, the market…
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Finance: How to meet the right people for success
PHUKET: They say you can determine a man’s income simply by taking the average of the four or five people with whom he spends the most time. I am not sure how scientific the study was that has produced this timeless piece of advice, but the general concept is easy to validate if you look closely at the people you…
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Business Buzz: Oversaturation of Facebook groups
PHUKET: One of the great benefits of Facebook is that due to the sheer number of people using it, it has become a marketer’s dream to easily and cheaply connect with potential customers and to market products and services with great results. But has it now reached the point of over-saturation? A classic case in point is the use of…
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Finance: Investing in Oil – The Ultimate Risk
PHUKET: It may be tempting to call a bottom for oil prices and then go bottom fishing for oil stocks or Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). Unfortunately, oil is one sector that most investors (especially those who aren’t working in the sector) will want to stay away from now and for the foreseeable future. Thanks to a combination of too much…
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The LifeCo: The business of healing
PHUKET: One doesn’t have to look far to find a spa in Phuket, but recent years have seen a marked shift in this trend, as new and established business are looking to cash in on wellness, as opposed to opulence and luxury. The LifeCo Phuket Well-Being Center based in Thalang is the first for the company outside of Turkey, and…
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Finance: Building a larger stream of future income
PHUKET: I am often contacted by people without massive amounts of cash asking me what they can do to prepare for the future. Early in my career I tended to take the approach most people in the industry do, which is to focus on the rich and let everyone else know that you are sorry about not being able to…
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Feadship’s Asian market blooming
PHUKET: Well ahead of the incredibly successful inaugural Thailand Yacht Show (TYS), Feadship Royal Dutch Shipbuilders were making superyacht waves while expanding into the the Asian region. “At this moment, Feadship is building multiple yachts in different sizes and in different models for Asian and Asia-based clients. The product and the brand appeals to the most discerning yachtsmen in the…
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Building a medical tourism hub
PHUKET: Phuket has the potential to become a leading regional hub for medical tourism, an industry that is well positioned for exponential growth primarily led by the demand for aesthetic treatments. Investment opportunities in medical facilities and premises are increasingly attractive amid the backdrop of a global economic slowdown. Despite the diminishing legacy market for ‘Gender Reassignment’ Surgery (GRS), more…
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Board of Trade plans SME matchmaking fairs
BANGKOK: Thailand’s Board of Trade is inviting newly established businesses across the country to join a ‘Business Matching’ event in Bangkok. The event is aimed at giving SMEs the opportunity to meet consumer giants such as department stores and retailers. The event will take place at the Bangkok Convention Center in Lat Prao on April 26. Board of Trade Chairman…
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Finance: Tech stocks are still dangerous
PHUKET: You would think the lessons learned in the dotcom bubble and subsequent crash would not be so quickly forgotten, but last year’s purchase by Facebook of the free smartphone app Whatsapp for 22 billion dollars was a very good reminder of how quickly we forget. There is no reason to put your life savings at risk with individual stocks…
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Business Buzz: How to master email marketing
PHUKET: Other than branding, one of the primary functions of social media marketing is to create a database of potential customers. But building the database is only the first step, so what do we do with it once we have it? I have previously discussed the importance and value of your database; now I am going to show you how…
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Peeking behind Phuket’s lace veil
PHUKET: With its idyllic beaches and beautiful beachfront resorts, Phuket is not only a hub of tourist activity, but with Asean integration now a factor, it is also well on its way to becoming a key global economic player. One industry that has seen sustained growth in the past decade is wedding planning and luxury events management. Here is a…
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Finance: Ups and downs in the price of oil
PHUKET: For somebody who pays attention to commodity prices, these are extremely interesting times. I still remember many talking heads on television predicting that we’d never see oil below 100 dollars per barrel. The argument was extremely convincing, especially when the markets seemed to be confirming its truth. With the flood of shale oil and the lifting of embargoes on…
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Asia Marine moves into motors
PHUKET: Asia Marine has been building, selling, chartering and managing yachts in Phuket for more than 25 years, and was voted ‘Best Asia based Yacht Charter Agent’ in the 2007 Asian Boating Awards. In December last year, Asia Marine CEO Vincent Tabuteau took the company in a new direction by joining forces with Frenchman Eric Noyel, founder of Asia Marine…
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Galileo Maritime Academy sends ambassadors to TYS
PHUKET: Thalang’s Galileo Maritime Academy is shining at the first-ever Thailand Yacht Show. Founded in 2012 by Brian Murray, a career chief engineer in the British Royal Navy and a superyacht captain for 30 years, Galileo offers courses that combine skill sets from the hospitality trade to the skills needed for working as superyacht crew. “The Thailand Yacht Show is…
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Aussies tackle unidentified medical patient quagmire in Phuket, Bali
PHUKET: Australian-based company IDTracker was launched to tackle the frightening number of unidentified foreign patients arriving unconscious or incoherent at Phuket hospitals. The company’s simple, durable wrist bands provide a unique emergency identification code number that is linked to the wearer’s secure on line profile and can be used by medical staff to access insurance details, emergency contacts, medical history…
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Business Buzz: Maximize social media impact
PHUKET: When using social media, it is very important to establish exactly what it is that you want to achieve. It is also important to understand that each social media platform works differently and can achieve different things. Overall, there are a many purposes for which social media can be used, but the most common are branding, lead generation, information…
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Finance: Fancy a punt in the semiconductor market?
PHUKET: The semiconductor industry helps drive technological progress and yet many semiconductor stocks have lagged the performance of the broader technology sector recently. However, small cap MaxLinear, Inc (NYSE: MXL) is an exception as shares are up 134 per cent from the start of 2015 to November, plus shares rallied close to 28 per cent after the company reported third…
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Lee Marine brings big names to Thailand Yacht Show
PHUKET: Lee Marine International Marine Brokerage’s re-investments continue in Phuket with the main focus being to better serve the many yacht enthusiasts who see their future on board any of the yachts represented by our firm, explained Josh Lee, founder and CEO of the company. The strength of their business success combines a wide product range with an experienced, dependable…
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Phuket Lighthouse Market back by popular demand
PHUKET: Building on its success last year, the Boat Lagoon Lighthouse Market is preparing to launch a redesigned layout at its venue as it continue to provide island exposure for local vendors and big-name luxury goods dealers. “We want to create an outdoor theater concept. Something similar to ‘theater in the park’ or ‘cinema in the park’, which are both…
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Finance: Are we in for a rough ride this year?
PHUKET: The past few years have been difficult, or mixed at best, for many investors in the stock market, with 2015 largely ending in another flat line performance – leading to predictions for more of the same in 2016. However, most predictions about 2015 from the start of last year were bullish and turned out to be off the mark,…
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Business Buzz: How much is a “like’ worth?
PHUKET: A ‘like’ is a measure on Facebook of how popular a page or a post is with other Facebook users. Someone recently asked me what a ‘like’ on Facebook was worth to a business. It started me thinking, could an actual value be placed on a ‘like’? The answer of course is yes, but for each business this value…
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Finance: The ‘not so sexy’ New Year’s resolution
PHUKET: Many people like to make New Year’s resolutions, and the most common ones tend to deal with health. Sadly, most people do not stick with their resolutions for very long, and I will get to one of the main reasons for this in a bit, as well as how to avoid falling into this trap. But let’s consider a…
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Finance: Keep calm, and invest on
PHUKET: Stock market corrections don’t come often, but when they do, they tend to come on fast and cause investors (along with the media) to panic. After all, it’s not uncommon to experience a double digit portfolio loss in a matter of weeks, or even over the course of just a few trading days. However, taking the following things into…
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Business Buzz: Targeting mobile users
PHUKET: As I reported last week, the increase in mobile smartphones has been steadily continuing. There is expectation that over 51 per cent of the online Christmas sales traffic in the United States will originate from smart-phones this year. So it is with confidence I predict that the focus for social media marketing strategies should be switched to mobile devices.…
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