3 replies to this topic

[TheYenta]

"China's largest commercial bank, Industrial and Commerce Bank of China (ICBC), has asked Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to consider lifting the foreign shareholding ceiling in Thai banks.
ICBC chairman Jiang Jianqing made the proposal at their meeting in Beijing on Friday, said Prime Minister's Office Minister Virachai Virameteekul.

Virachai said ICBC was keen to take more than 49 per cent of Thailand's ACL Bank but Thai law caps foreign shareholding in Thai businesses at 49 per cent.ICBC also asked the premier to consider raising to 50 per cent the current 25-per-cent limit on foreign directors on any board.

ICBC has expressed interest in such a deal for years, but it has delayed in expectation of a revision of the foreign share-ownership level in a bid to seek control of management. Abhisit said he would ask the Finance Ministry to consider the request, which he said would depend on whether the entry of ICBC would increase competition within Thailand's banking sector, which would narrow the spread of the interest rate."

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2009/06/28...ss_30106215.php

[Hedda]

It will be interesting to see how far the Chinese get with this proposal, because one of the things that has stalled past US/Thai trade agreements has been the Thais' unwillingness to open their financial markets to foreign majority interests. Now that so many huge US banks are in no position to go shopping for Thai banks, but China is, it will be instructive to see if China gets any further on this issue with the Thais than the US did. Let's hope Junior Opposite has got more sense than to trade a bank for a panda cub.

[DOLLY]

One of the more pathetic aspects of this new Pando cub craze is the way the authorities keep suggesting that the cub "could turn the tourism slump around."
As the recent posts about tourists being extorted suggest, there's a lot more wrong with tourism here than one panda is going to change. I just hope the poor thing doesn't get sick when they move him outside at the zoo and he starts breathing the polluted Chiang Mai air.

[Garcia]

Have you seen those photos of elephants painted balck and white to look like a panda ? The Thais seem to be gripped with a bad case of Panda fever. Or is it the Tourist Authority trying to play the only card it has into a straight flush.