Eastern Seaboard Report December 2015 – Prepared by Mark Bowling, Chairman BCCT Eastern Seaboard Firstly, I’d like to wish all of our readers a very happy and successful New Year, have a great 2016! Thank you to all of our regular readers of the ESB reports and I trust I can count on your support in the forthcoming BCCT Board of Directors election on 28th January. The Customs Department has opened an X-ray scanning terminal for rail freight, the first of its kind in Southeast Asia, at the Laem Chabang port in Si Racha district of Chon Buri province. The opening ceremony was witnessed by chiefs of the department, the State Railway of Thailand, the Laem Chabang port and Si Racha district on 29th December. The terminal is intended to speed customs clearance and boost efforts to screen for smuggled and undesired cargo, said Customs director-general Kulit Sombatsiri. Laem Chabang has handled the largest number of cargo containers in Southeast Asia and is 24th in the world, Mr Kulit said. Savills (Thailand) Limited are pleased to announce their recent appointment as Property Management Company at The Palm, Wong Amat Beach by Nova Group. The Palm is a luxury beachfront condominium consisting of 542 units within two high-rise towers, providing a total living space of 30,000sq.m. Savills already have a strong foothold in the property management sector in Pattaya with high-end condominiums Northshore and Northpoint already to their credit. SET-listed industrial land developer Rojana Industrial Park Plc (ROJNA) expects to miss its sales target this year because of the weak global economic outlook and poor demand at home. Director Amara Charoengitwattangun said the company had earlier set a sales target of 500-600 rai this year. But with the global and domestic economies yet to fully recover, the company now expects sales of 400 rai in 2015, she said. Ms Amara said although the company did not plan to expand any projects next year, it would continue with the third phase of its 110- megawatt power plant, worth US $15 million. The company will also continue with the plan to develop a combined 3,000 rai of land for industrial estates in Rayong and Chon Buri provinces. Rojana has also developed industrial land in Chon Buri, including 1,000 rai in Laem Chabang and another 1,000 rai in Bo Win, which are ready for sale. Universal Utilities (UU), a tap water subsidiary of SET-listed Eastern Water Resources Development and Management Plc, plans to go public in the second quarter of next year with an initial public offering (IPO) of 420 million shares. Of the total, 353 million shares will be sold to the public and the remaining 67 million to Eastern Water at the same price, said UU deputy managing director Sombat Yusamart. Around 200 million baht from the IPO will be spent to expand UU's capacity by 500 cubic metres per day at both Bowin Industrial Estate in Si Racha and at its plant in Sattahip, both in Chon Buri province. Sport-utility vehicles (SUVs) and pickup passenger vehicles (PPVs) turned out to be very popular based on bookings at the Thailand International Motor Expo 2015 during British Chamber of Commerce Thailand, 7th Floor 208 Wireless Road, Lumpini, Pathumwan, Bangkok 10330, Thailand Tel: 085 2828 120 Email: [email protected] www.bccthai.com December. Chalatchai Paphatphong, vice-president of Inter-Media Consultant Co, the event's organiser, said the proportion of SUV and PPV bookings rose to 30.9% of the total from 17.9% last year. Bookings of passenger cars and eco-cars fell to 46.2% from 57.6%, with pickup trucks up to 19.1% from 17.7%. The organiser reported total bookings for this year's event dropped by 7.4% year-on-year to 39,125 vehicles. Average booking prices were 1.146 million baht per vehicle, up 0.4%. Toyota posted the top number of bookings with 5,975, followed by Honda at 4,864, Mazda 4,542, Isuzu 4,348 and Mitsubishi for 3,617. For the luxury segment, Mercedes-Benz secured 1,657 bookings, while BMW including Mini had 1,138. Thailand has dropped from ninth place to 12th in the world ranking of automobile manufacturers as European production has recovered, according to a local industry executive. Thai vehicle exports, on the other hand, remained among the global top 10, said Surapong Paisitpattanapong, vice-president of the Federation of Thai Industries' automotive group. According to data from the Organisation Internationale des Constructeurs d'Automobiles (OICA), China is the world's largest vehicle producer, churning out 12.09 million units in the second quarter of this year. Not really related to the Eastern Seaboard, but certainly worthy of a note: A classic British motorcycle brand is making a foray into Thailand to tap well-heeled bikers as part of ambitious plans to expand operations globally. Founded in 1893, Royal Enfield is the oldest motorcycle brand in Britain, but its home production base closed in 1971. In Thailand, Royal Enfield has appointed General Auto Supply Co as its first Thai distributor. The following news items reproduced with kind permission of S.A.T.C.C B.Grimm Power Limited has awarded Poyry with owner’s engineer services assignment for Amata B.Grimm Power (Rayong) 3, 4 & 5 gas-fired combined cycle power plant projects in Thailand. The assignment includes project management, engineering review, Quality Assurance and Control surveillance and site supervision services. The projects consist of 3 blocks each of 120 MW combined cycle / cogeneration power plants. The sites lie within the Amata City Industrial Estate, Rayong Province, Thailand, some 120 km south east of Bangkok. The plants are embedded within the industrial estate private power network, providing efficient and reliable electricity and steam to industrial consumers and electricity to the national grid. The projects are part of the B. Grimm Power Limited’s strategy to construct 16 power plants with a combined capacity of 2 GW by 2019. Sino-Thai Engineering and Construction Plc and Right Tunnelling Co won electronic auctions held yesterday to find contractors to build the State Railway of Thailand’s (SRT) dual-track rail route from Chachoengsao to Saraburi. Kamol Tangkijjaroen, deputy governor of the SRT, said the 106km-long rail project is broken into two contracts and the two companies won each of them. The first contract deals with the construction of the Chachoengsao-Khlong 19-Kaeng Khoi section and the Bua Yai-Kaeng Khoi section of the dual-track rail route along with three associated bypasses, he said. The second contract deals with the construction of the Wihan Daeng-Bua Yai section of the dual-track rail route, plus a tunnel, he said. British Chamber of Commerce Thailand, 7th Floor 208 Wireless Road, Lumpini, Pathumwan, Bangkok 10330, Thailand Tel: 085 2828 120 Email: [email protected] www.bccthai.com Talesun modules in situ. The company has begun production at a new facility in Thailand. Talesun has become the first of a wave of Chinese firms planning to establish manufacturing operations in Thailand to begin production in the Southeast Asian country. The company said this week that it had begun the first phase of production at its new 500MW integrated solar cell and module assembly plant in the Thai-China Industrial Park in Rayong, Thailand. MAI-listed property developer J.S.P. Property Plc will form a joint venture with China’s Zhongtian Construction Group to develop a mixed-use project worth 15 billion baht in Chon Buri next year. J.S.P. will own 51% of the joint venture, which will buy two adjacent plots of land with a combined size of 161 rai in tambon Bang Sare of Sattahip district. Chief executive Tanongsak Manotamraksa said the Chinese partner would pay 1.3 billion baht for the plots, partly funded by the Bank of China. Ford has announced that it has pumped in an additional investment of US$186 million (RM785 million) into its Ford Thailand Manufacturing (FTM) facility in Rayong to allow for increased production of its Ford Ranger pick-up truck.The facelifted Ranger is currently built at Ford’s joint-venture facility, AutoAlliance Thailand (AAT), which is the automaker’s primary Ranger production facility in Asia Pacific, and with AAT forecast to operate at or near maximum capacity for the foreseeable future, the company is expanding the build to FTM to ensure production copes with demand.The new investment at FTM will include dedicated truck facilities in the plant’s body and trim, chassis and final (TCF) shops, which will be fully integrated with parts of the existing facility. Additionally, the paint facilities will be expanded to accommodate a pick-up truck. Ford has installed new energy-efficient LED lighting in its Asia-Pacific factories including in Thailand. Installation of the eco-friendly lighting technology will reduce Ford's energy use by 18 million kilowatt-hours annually, enough to power more than 1,900 average-sized homes per year. Pattaya is upgrading a dangerous U-turn at Sukhumvit Soi 58 after a string of accidents near Pattaya School No. 7. Sarawuth Thisawong, foreman for Chokeboonmee Ltd., on Dec. 1 led the work crew to build a new U-turn about 300 meters from the dangerous school turn, with the new outlet located opposite the Chonburi Pest Management Center. PTT Global Chemical, the country's largest petrochemicals producer, recently announced plans to invest US$7.7 billion in Thailand and the United States over the next five years. Some $5.7 billion will be for building a petrochemicals complex in Ohio to exploit shale-gas resources in the US state, $1 billion for its Map Ta Phut retrofit project in Rayong, and the balance for joint-venture projects with Toyota Tsusho and Sanyo Chemical to manufacture propylene oxide and polyether polyols at the Hemaraj Eastern Industrial Estate, also in Rayong.