Bangkok--21 Mar--Siam Commercial Bank
Siam Commercial Bank participated in the 5th Annual Euromoney Thailand Investment Forum, part of the Euromoney Conference 2011 events organized by Euromoney Conferences, one of the world's leading cross-border investment and capital markets conference organizers. SCB executives joined panel discussions to provide their perspectives on the economy, finance, and the direction of Thailand’s capital market to help prepare the private sector for upcoming cross-border competition. The forum is held during March 21-22, 2011 at the Centara Grand at CentralWorld.
Mr. Sopon Asawanuchit, SCB Executive Vice President — Corporate Finance mentioned about Thailand's role in the ASEAN amid the Emergence of AEC that the integration of ASEAN and increased liberalization will undoubtedly present opportunities for Thai companies to gain regional markets and in the long run outpace their regional peers. That is because the AEC will result in a combined population of over 566 million people or the same size of all European countries with a gross domestic product around over 1.77 trillion dollars. Amid what will become an increasingly competitive playing field, Thai banks must be prepared to assist their clients by offering more than traditional bank funding to support their regional expansion plans. To fulfill such aspirations of Thai companies to make a confident entry into regional and international markets, SCB is ready utilizing our capabilities and financial solutions to help our clients pinpoint opportunities amid this new economic landscape.
Mr. Thun Reansuwan, SCB First Executive Vice President — Capital Markets joined the symposium of Financing Future Expansion: Corporate Fundraising in Thailand and predicted that the economic changes present unprecedented opportunities for companies with strong balance sheets to expand and strengthen their business globally, either organically or inorganically, to enhance revenues and profit growth. In past years, the business models of large Thai corporations have changed drastically, with more focus on expanding internationally as evidenced by heightened levels of large-scale offshore acquisitions. Consequently, demand for funding among large Thai corporations has grown sharply, especially for foreign currency funding in USD. This presents a big challenge to Thai financial institutions and financial markets, which need to adapt or even reinvent themselves to be able to support clients amid this challenging environment. With such increasing demands to come, banks should provide optional accesses to raise fund such as turning to equity capital markets. In Thailand, there is still room for further development of on-shore dollar liquidity, which will be advantageous for Thai corporations in terms of lowering funding costs. Meanwhile, rising interest rates will prompt fundraisers to opt for fixed rate bonds or swap markets. This year, we can expect to see the volume of new issues somewhere close to 300 billion baht for corporate bonds.
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