Thaksin hints at new maximum lease term?

Some new details emerged today about Thaksin’s proposed new city and land reclamation project, buried with a story about the flood prevention works where Thaksin reveals details about the proposed pricing & structure: i.e. 10 million per rai for a 99 year lease.

Read the full story here  http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/politics/282844/thaksin-says-flood-system-ready-by-2015

I say its interesting as the current, maximum lease term in Thailand is 30 years, well ok, 50 years under special circumstances.

So is this a hint that the current government may accept the various proposals from real estate industry to increase the maximum lease term to 99 years? It would be a good thing for the property industry if they did.

Foreign land ownership in Thailand is restricted to promoted commercial activity, or individuals who meet a very particular set of circumstances requiring ministry of the interior approval and investing an additional 40 Million Baht in government bonds for 5 years. It is also possible to inherit land, but it must be disposed of within a short period of time.

An unmarried foreigner who prefers to live in a house is left with only one option. To rent it for as long as possible, and at the moment, the maximum lease term is just 30 years, which of course many people will live to see the expiry of.

It is possible of course to build an option to renew into a lease agreement, but this should be treated with much caution.

An option to renew will not be registered on the title deed at the land department, it is merely a contractual promise between the parties. So what happens if say the landlord dies or becomes insolvent? Well in that situation the promise would not be binding on the landlord’s successor. However, if the property changes hands whilst the lease is still in effect, the successor is obligated to honour the real terms of the lease up until the expiry date.

In effect the option to renew (and any other contractual promise) dies with the original landlord and there is no legislation in place that provides a tenant with security of tenure beyond the expiry of the lease, unlike say the landlord and tenant act 1954 of the UK.

The “short” maximum lease term and lack of security of tenure are some of the reasons why most banks refuse to lend on leasehold properties here.

Increasing the lease term to 99 years then would be good for the property industry as a whole. It would create a more valuable marketable asset for Thai landlords and provide more security of tenure for tenants whether they be Thai or foreign.

I have already addressed my other concerns about the land reclamation project and new city in a previous post. Pricing needs to be reviewed in detail, as these levels are comparable to areas of Bangna Trad, albeit off the main road.

So it does not sound too unreasonable, but the question though is whether it can be built, profitably, for that much and whether it would be able to satisfy all the environmental concerns that have been raised.

OR he could have just forgotten that the maximum lease in Thailand is 30 years…

Wordles

 

Wordle.net is strangely addictive here’s the worldle for my blog

The BOI Fair 2012: don’t miss it!

I work a lot with the Thai government’s Board of Investment, so felt that I really ought to go   to the BOI fair this year. The last one was held shortly after the 1997 economic crisis to restore confidence after that calamitous economic collapse, I was here when it happened but missed that show, so I had little to prepare me for what lay in store this afternoon.

I certainly didnt expect to be walking around the fair in wonder and something akin to tech heaven for something close to 7 hours straight. I started off in the Challenger hall as I had arranged to meet some clients, and wanted to get to know some developers of new industrial parks, and once that mission was accomplished I allowed myself to wander around.

I saw moon rocks, astronaut suits, met the people who run GITSDA who published up to the minute satellite feeds on the Thai flood which so many of us relied on, I got to see and play with Sony’s 3D TV’s, their giant LED 3D displays

Sony also had a 3D wrap-around headset with speakers. The picture looked great , nice and sharp, plus the 3D effect was good, but had to be held to my head, why they couldn’t add a strap is beyond me  :/

But the real treats were yet to come. The fair is HUGE. As I said earlier it took me 7 hours to walk around the place and I didn’t get to see everything. It fills Challenger halls 1,2 & 3 (where firms like WD Seagate, Sony and some smaller firms are exhibiting), then the Innotech exhibitions is being held in the Novotel Impact hall, and then there is a large lakeside area where several big firms have erected giant pavilions and have gone to incredible lengths to showcase their technology.

Most of these will have some form of show, usually 3D TV, live performances,  4D TV (with wind, movement, rain etc) or a mix of all of the above, and sometimes to brilliant effect.

Michelin's Lunar Wheel

The range of technologies on display was impressive, however there were some definite themes, namely 3D (everyone had 3D something) LG for instance showed off their glasses free 3DTV,  also electric vehicles, and solar power were both highly prominent.  Lots of concept cars and vehicles on display, of these I liked Toyota’s curiously named “Whee” personal transportation vehicle, their answer to the Segway I suppose:

(The Toyota Whee: pst didn’t anyone tell them that Nintendo had dibs on that name?)

There were some shows that I really highly recommend.

I thought Panasonic’s 3D show was outstanding, which used their largest 151″ plasma screen full HD 3DTV to brilliant effect, but their entire booth was done really well.

The British sand artist in the movie at the Royal pavilion is sooo talented its scary, absolutely awesome to see.

But that’s just it, there’s so much to see and do and I missed some stuff, like the SCG event, so frankly I ‘d rarther let my pics do the talking so here you go:

Gallery 1

Michelin’s Lunar Wheel

Oh, and as you can see they had a few booth babes there too

I’ll be adding links to some Youtube vids of the exhibits that I took shortly.

Its on until the end of this week, January 20th 2012, and admission to everything is FREE of Charge, no need for a special pass or to book anything, just go, I did.

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The following two vids I have found on Youtube who both did a better job of filming these shows than me.

By tanapong99

by treepop3416

Four months, fishing and a flood, but still smoke free

Just thought I’d give you all a quick update, its now been more than 4 months since I stopped smoking during that time there has definitely been moments when I have thought about lighting up; 3 days on a boat,in the middle of the Gulf of Thailand certainly presented opportunities, but I stayed the course, and resisted, not that it was hard, it really wasnt. Anyway those weak moments when I think of smoking are rare these days and when they do come (as they will) they are fleeting and easily ignored

Whats it done for me? Well, honestly, I cant say that I have noticed that I have any more energy or any other noticeable physical side effect, but I do feel good about making that decision to stop. I know its a step closer to being more healthy. Oh and I haven’t gained weight either.

So I continue to recommend Allen Carrs Easy Way to Stop Smoking, I’m delighted to be able to say that its worked for me, and I’m not looking back.

NASA Satellite Imagery of the Indochina Floods of 2011

I have been working on showing some clients the extent of the flooding in Thailand and during my search for recent satellite images Amy Kunrojpanya ( @AKunrojpanya ) from Google very kindly shared a link to NASA’s rapid response website :

http://lance.nasa.gov/imagery/rapid-response/ .

NASA’s images have been extremely useful to my clients and incredibly enlightening for me.

I spent a few minutes this morning with the kmz files of these NASA images in Google Earth to put together the following animated gif showing the extent of the flooding in Indochina from 1st January 2011 to the 3rd November 2011.

Click the image for the animation to begin

All of the images that I used to make this file (and many more besides) are available at NASA’s Rapid Response website, in the link provided above.

So what colour is Thailand’s flood water anyway?

Well when added to the water that half of Bangkok gets its drinking water supply from its mostly a torrid stinking brown:

But just in the past few days I have started to see an increase in the amount of red/yellow chatter on my twitter timeline regarding the flood.

Comments such as “there’s more red volunteers than yellow”, or “some donations are reserved only for reds”, whilst others wish that “hiso shopping malls would get swamped so that they know how it feels” , and some suggest “perhaps its only when the hiso houses are flooded that any real action will be taken to prevent this from happening again”.

This to me is especially worrying given that tensions are already high from stressed out, flooded communities who effectively feel forced to protest just to have their voices heard and some even have taken action by partially destroying dykes threatening Bangkok’s tap water, more industrial estates, and other residential areas that just so happen to become increasingly pro democrat the closer that you get to the centre of the capital.

I’m no water management expert so will refrain from comment on whether it is right to destroy those dykes, who knows it might help drain that flood water faster, but my concern is how the other communities will react to the flooding created by those destroyed dykes.

Will they help to carry that burden willingly and happily help their long suffering neighbours?

I just don’t know. The community spirit that I have seen in my area whilst helping erect sandbag walls has been incredible, people bring water to the volunteers and even delicious iced fruit sherberts all completely free of charge.

But barely hidden beneath the black surface of these flood waters is a country with unresolved political divisions, that has seen the National government at logger heads with the Bangkok Governor from the opposition party, both of whom seem set on using this disaster to  score points and gain some sort of advantage over the other.

Its a very dangerous high stakes game that they are playing, and both should be equally despised for doing so. As I mentioned on twitter a few days back, “anyone caught using this disaster for political gain should be recruited for croc and snake catching duty”.

Whilst the imagery of Burberry wellied PM wrestling a crocodile has its allures, in reality I just hope that the people on the street set aside their colours to help each other at least just until this current mess gets cleaned up.

That’s not too much to ask for, is it?

Thai Floods – What happens next?

The short answer to this question is an emphatic ‘I don’t know’.

How could I? I have never been in a situation like this before. Like many over the past week or so, I have been squirreling away gallons of filtered water, camping gas, food, batteries and various other items. Like my neighbours I have also grabbed sheets of polycarbonate, silicone and miles of duct tape to seal the ground floor of our house. Unlike most of my neighbours I have not however been able to find sandbags but reckon should things go pear shape my plans to seal the house will work.

Thankfully so far we have been lucky, and in fact I think we will continue to be, which is a lot more than I can say of the thousands of people who live to the North of our location, and to those who live in areas where the water has been diverted to save Bangkok.

I’m not sure how I feel about waters being diverted to save Bangkok. My wife and I were discussing it and both of us agreed that we feel uncomfortable about other people’s houses and businesses being flooded to protect ours. In fact from a personal perspective  we wouldn’t mind sharing in the pain if it helped alleviate the suffering of others, but what would be the economic damage to the country if the capital was submerged? (If the water is allowed to spread over a wider area wouldn’t the average depth be shallower?)

There are going to be many questions raised after this flood has retreated amongst which will be: what was the flood management plan, really? Who was supposed to be in charge? What was the flood prevention system? Was it adequate? Did the authorities have the equipment they needed ? ( eg obsolete weather radars , missing or inadequate flood levies,) Why didn’t the industrial estates in Ayutthaya have adequate prior notice of the flood? What can be done to improve on all those points and avert future disasters?

So far over 900 factories have been closed and as someone who works in the industrial real estate business it is to these manufacturers, the employers of many of these flood victims, that I find my train of thought drifting towards. Many of these factories are the production bases of major multinational companies, whose tolerances for risk and uncertainty in any form is very low.

These firms are rational, and despite what many may think of big business, they are also compassionate, not only providing employment (at levels higher than minimum wage) but also support through their generous Corporate Social Responsibility programs which sponsors local schools, clinics and other worthy projects.

However, these firms need a stable environment to do business, they need to know that their strategic investments are safe (for that is what a factory is to these firms), and for that they need to have confidence in their choice of location. Not only in the logistical concerns of the geographical location, but also in the political context.

Flood water, snakes, crocodiles and precision electronic components do not  mix very well, and so to get these factories up and running again is going to require another round of investment, and that’s going to mean that these firms will undertake new round of due diligence and risk assessments, where the answers to the questions I’ve raised above (as well as new questions addressing reduced corporate income tax, and proposed increase in minimum wages) will be weighed against all the other points which initially enabled them to make to first take the decision to place the investment in this country.

The question that their employees, many of whom are currently living in shelters having lost their homes, will be, after that review will these firms maintain/renew their investment in Thailand? It already seems that many are already looking abroad, my question is what will the government do to give these firms the confidence they need to stay. (Hint: in my opinion it requires massive investment in flood prevention measures and reformation of their disaster management systems).

As for me, what do I plan to do? Well professionally my team at Knight Frank Thailand are helping firms find dry temporary accommodation to keep them in business and to keep supply chains running, but our next steps, will be, like last year, to contact Habitat for Humanity Thailand to see how we can work with them again to help rebuild and repair homes once the waters subside.

If you want to donate money to them you can do so here offline (and get souvenirs) or online here however they also need YOU, your time, effort and sweat so go ahead and volunteer here and to find out what’s required of you see a short summary here (you dont need any experience).

Also if you prefer the various Chamber of Commerces suggest a donation to either of the below organizations:

* Thai Red Cross Flood Appeal.  Funds can be transferred to the bank account below:

Bank name: Siam Commercial Bank, Sapakachat Thai Branch The Thai Red Cross Current Account Number: 045-3-04190-6 Account name: Thai Red Cross helps flood victims in Thailand

For issuing the receipt of the donation, please fax transfer slip together with name and address of the donor at fax 0 2256 4069. For further information, please contact Tel. 0 2251 7853-6.     You can view more ways to help on the Thai Red Cross website at:  http://www.redcross.or.th/home/    Available in Thai language only.

* Board of Trade/Thai Chamber of Commerce Heart to Heart Project is focused on helping flood victims by collecting funds to procure life’s urgent necessities.   You may download a form from the link below and fax it to 0-2622-1991, along with proof of payment. Bank details are included in the form for people wishing to donate via cheque or money transfer.  https://www.amchamthailand.com/asp/view_doc.asp?DocCID=3162