Bangkok--5 Aug--SET
The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET), jointly with The Table Tennis Association of Thailand (TTAT), has continued the "SET Star Junior Table Tennis" project for the second year to intensivelypromote young table tennis players, leading towards the world championships, underlining one of SET’s mission to develop society towards sustainable growth.
SET Chairman Sathit Limpongpan said the SET’s contribution to this project had proved records with overwhelming success of the players by winning the historic gold medal of the national Thai youth at the SEA Games 2015, the first ever in 32 years and the SET Thailand Junior and Cadet Open, winning 11 medals, the highest in 21 years.This year’s target was to prepare the Thai youth for the Youth Olympic Games 2018 and to get top ten world ranking in four years.
“This year’s support will emphasize on both sports and financial literacy skill. The first dimension is to be sustainable by having strong health, discipline and spirit of the athletes from the start. Another one is extremely important these days, that is, the sustainable financial knowledge from childhood. As such, we will arrange training to promote financial planning for table tennis players conducted by financial and investment experts. This is in line with SET’s mission to create sustainability in all aspects of the business and society as a whole,” added Sathit.
TTAT President Piradej Pruttipruk said, "We really appreciate SET's support and emphasis on youth development in selecting table tennis as a vehicle for the mission. The support and commitment have fulfilled clear developing direction. This year, we plan to send Thai youth players to two tournaments, which are ASEAN Championship and Asian Championship, while cultivating young talents for Youth Olympic 2018 in Argentina, as our goal is to make it to the world top ten ranking in the next four years.”
The association has set up six approaches to achievement covering: developing local coaches and organizers to disperse tennis competition to the region; selecting talents throughout the country by conducting “SET All Thailand Table Tennis Championship 2015”, four times a year; moving towards international standard by holding world table tennis competition named “SET Thailand Junior & Cadet Open 2015”; developing young talented players by providing exclusive training programs inclusive of overseas trainings; coaching Thai youth, aiming to send one male and one female players to compete in Youth Olympic Games 2018; and sending Thai youth players to compete in various world tournaments to achieve top ten world ranking in the next four years.