BUSINESS NEWS:

PM’s Office rejects claims Veerapong’s appointment against Constitution

The government is confident that the appointment of Veerapong Ramangkul would not go against the Constitution and bring about any conflict of interest.

Former Deputy PM and Finance Minister, Veerapong Ramangkul, was made the government’s chief economic advisor in addition to the appointment of 11 new Cabinet members on Saturday.

While some doubt how much Veerapong would contribute to the country’s battling of the many economic woes considering his role as an advisor Prime Minister’s Office Minister, Chusak Sirinil, affirmed today that Veerapong would also attend the Cabinet meeting without violating the Constitution.

Chusak also stated that the Cabinet would still hold the final decision to allow the economic advisor team to join the weekly meeting in order to prevent criticisms over conflict of interest and possible leak of state confidentials as Veerapong also works for private businesses.

Moreover the PM’s Office Minister turned down claims that Veerapong opted to accept the advisor’s role instead of a ministerial position because he wants to keep his day-job at other companies.

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Survey finds most voters indifferent about latest shake-up

The latest Bangkok University survey stated that Thai voters found nothing new from the latest Cabinet shake-up and expected no improvement from the new line-up.

Bangkok University has asked some 1,100 voters in Bangkok on Sunday what they think of the new Cabinet line-up.

And almost half of them said the change would not help increase or decrease the government’s popularity while a third of them expected the reshuffle to do more harm than good to the Samak Administration.

Almost one in two respondents appeared unhappy with the new line-up as they claimed that some ministers are not qualified for the jobs.

When asked how much confidence they have in the refreshed Cabinet the majority of them did not believe the government would be able to solve the problem of rising cost of living while half of them stated the Samak Sundaravej government would not successfully restore unity among Thais.

And the most pressure issues that voters need the government’s immediate actions are economic problems and high cost of living, political conflicts among the public deep-south violence Thailand’s international relations with other countries and corruption.

However every one in two respondents believed that there would not be any improvement in Thai politics after the reshuffle while a fifth of them expected worsening situation.

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Surapong: Thai inflation to ease towards end of 2008

The Finance Minister has repeated his confidence that local inflation would start coming down in the fourth quarter of this year.

Finance Minister Surapong Suebwonglee told reporters he believes Thai inflation has hit its highest level already and should begin to ease towards the year’s end.

Thailand’s headline Consumer Price Index hit its new 10-year high of 9.2% in July.

Analysts have predicted local CPI to carry on rising in August and that would force the Bank of Thailand to adjust its benchmark interest rate up again at its next meeting after having raised the rate by 25 basis points to 3.5% last month.

But Surapong believed otherwise.

He forecast that the inflation rate would not rise any further and would start to come down from October.

The Finance Minister is also confident that Thai economy would have expanded by 6% in Q2-08 while hinting an introduction of a new set of economic stimulus measures very soon.

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SRT: Train passenger no. rises 17% since free service in effect on Aug. 1

The country’s railway operator has reported a sizable increase in the number of train passengers since the debut of the state-initiated free rail service last Friday.

State Railway of Thailand spokesperson, Pairat Rojcharoen-ngarm, said that since the introduction of free train service last Friday the number of rail passengers totaled more than 73,300 people when compared with the daily average of 62,600 people for the month of August.

This represents a 17% increase on the SRT book.

The free train service is a part of 6 new state economic stimulus measures to help low-income earners when prices are on the rise. All programs came into effect on August 1st.

Most popular train routes over the weekend included Bangkok-Hua Hin, Bangkok-Phitsanulok, Bangkok-Nakhon Sawan and Hat Yai-Yala-Sungai Kolok.

Pairat added that during working days passenger number is expected to rise by 20% to around 75,000 which is still manageable for the SRT.

However the State Railway’s mechanic team is now fixing 49 cars to be added to its service in case that the number of passengers rise to an average of 85,000 during the next 6 months.


SET MONITOR:

Thai share prices slipped on Monday after trade has been locked in narrow range in thin volume.

The SET composite index slipped almost 4 points to 674.6 with 16-month-low turnover of less than 6 billion baht or about 172.5 million dollars.

The only net seller on the market remained foreign investors of nearly 790 million baht which is around 23.5 million dollars.

Local institutions bought the most with the net value of almost 498 million baht or nearly 15 million dollars followed by retail investors of 291 million baht that’s more than eight million dollars.

The country’s main stock index finished more than 0.5% lower as local political instability still weighed heavily on investor minds.

Worries over the sluggish U.S. economy and volatile oil price also slowed investors down.

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