Showing posts with label Investors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Investors. Show all posts

Saturday 14 November 2020

Pfizer, BioNTech Vaccine Fueling Optimism for Thailand’s Tourism

 

The announcement from Pfizer and BioNTech’s progress of a corona-virus vaccine is fueling optimism for Thailand’s tourism industry. Spurring hopes that Thailand will soon reopen for mass tourism. Overseas investors are already piling into the country’s financial markets.

Inflows into Thai sovereign debt have climbed to the highest in 17 months in November, even though the month is less than half over. The baht has strengthened almost 3% since the end of October, making it the best-performing currency in Asia after the Indonesian rupiah.

The new Bank of Thailand governor, Sethaput Suthiwart-Narueput, will host his first Monetary Policy Committee meeting next week, though he is unlikely to do much to deter foreign funds.

“Foreigners have been mainly buying the front-end of the Thai debt curve for exposure to baht gains,” said Poon Panichpibool, a strategist at Krung Thai Bank. They were betting on Thai currency gains, and it looks like the baht would strengthen further over the next 12 months as a vaccine would be a major trigger for tourism arrivals, he said.
Pfizer and BioNTech’s Vaccine is Over 90% Effective

The favorable vaccine test results announced by Pfizer and BioNtech this week are particularly positive for the economy given that tourism contributes roughly 20% of the nation’s gross domestic product. They may help speed up the progress towards the reopening for tourism, which has already started through talks with China to establish a quarantine-free travel corridor by January.

Overseas investors have snapped up a net US$1.5 billion of Thai bonds this month through Thursday, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The surge has trimmed net foreign sales this year to just $132 million, compared with a cumulative outflow of as much as $4 billion after the first five months of the year.

Mr Sethaput is set to keep interest rates on hold at the monetary policy meeting on Wednesday, according to all of the seven economists surveyed so far by Bloomberg.

It is possible policy makers may make some reference to baht strength being a negative for the economy. Nonetheless, The BoT may be restrained from overt actions to curb the currency’s gains for fear of being put on the watchlist by the United States, Mr Poon of KTB said.

Political protest hurting Thailand tourism

The recent political protests that have weighed on demand for Thai assets are also starting to look less of a deterrent — at least based on one metric. The implied yield of the offshore baht has dropped below that of the onshore currency this month, after being more than 100 basis points above it in early September. The spread is seen as a proxy for political risks.

At the same time, there’s no sign the protests are going to end in the near future. The political noise may persist for some time as the 2013-2014 demonstrations took more than six months to settle, said Tim Leelahaphan, an economist at Standard Chartered.

While there are always some negatives around, the overall outlook for Thai bonds due to the vaccine progress and resumption of tourism is looking better than it has for some time. The surge of inflows seen so far this month could well prove to be the rule rather than the exception as 2021 rolls around. – Bloomberg


Source - Chiang Rai Times

Saturday 3 June 2017

#Indonesia to promote #Golf tourism in #Japan

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 The Tourism Ministry is set to hold the 2017 Indonesia Golf Sales Mission event in Katori city, northern Chiba Prefecture, Japan, on June 8.

This event is part of the ministry’s effort to achieve this year’s target of welcoming 762,000 Japanese tourists to Indonesia.

“Four sellers are set to participate in this event, namely Bali Fantastic, Riverside Golf Club, Multi Holiday and the Garuda Indonesia [branch] in Tokyo. They are at the frontlines in selling golf travel packages to 50 buyers consisting of travel agents, golf communities and associations in Katori,” said I Gde Pitana, the ministry's deputy for overseas promotion.

The event, supported by the Indonesian Embassy in Japan, Visit Indonesia Tourism Office (VITO) Japan and the Indonesian Golf Course Owners Association (APLGI), will be held at the Narita no Mori Country Club.


 The ministry's deputy assistant for Asia Pacific tourism promotion, Vinsensius Jemadu, said the sales mission will promote Indonesia's 10 priority destinations of Lake Toba, Tanjung Kelayang, Tanjung Lesung, Thousand Islands, Borobudur temple, Bromo - Tengger - Semeru, Mandalika, Wakatobi, Labuan Bajo and Morotai.

“A number of foreign and local investors are invited to develop these destinations. But apart from them, the historic relations between Japan and Indonesia have resulted in plenty of Japanese caves located across the archipelago. The tight relationship between the two countries was also evidenced during Japan’s fifth anniversary [event] of the tsunami disaster a few months ago at the Aceh Tsunami Museum,” said Vinsensius.