Aurelia Butler

The 2023 to 2027 plan in the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC), which includes investments such as electric vehicles and medical technology, and would be a boon for all of the country and future investors, newly appointed EEC Chief Chula Sukmanop said.”The EEC is a law. If you want to throw it away, you need to make another law to do it,” he told a news conference. “If scrapped, people in the region would not accept that,” he added.Thailand’s May 14 election will be a showdown between parties aligned with the military-backed establishment, led by Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, and the billionaire Shinawatra family-backed Pheu Thai party, this time led by Paetongtarn, the 36-year-old daughter and niece of two ex-premiers. The EEC, which covers three provinces east of the capital Bangkok, is a centerpiece of government efforts to boost growth and encourage investment, particularly in high-tech industries.Chula said investment of more than 400 billion baht ($11.69 billion) a year during the five-year period would be achieved, with Thailand well placed to attract investors seeking to relocate as several countries face recession risks.Some projects, however, are behind schedule, including a rail project to link Thailand’s main gateway Suvarnabhumi airport to the capital’s second international airport at Don Mueang, and U-Tapao airport near Pattaya. ($1 = 34.21 baht)($1 = 34.2200 baht) More

The move follows the introduction of a new U.S. legislation that would allow the White House to ban TikTok or other foreign-based technologies if they pose a national security risk.Other countries and entities have also elected to ban the app. TikTok is owned by China-based ByteDance, the world’s most valuable start-up. Numerous countries have raised concerns over its proximity to the Chinese government and hold over user data across the world.Here is a list of countries and entities that have implemented a partial or complete ban on TikTok:AustraliaBanned TikTok from all federal government-owned devices over security concerns.The move makes the country the last of the ‘Five Eyes’, an intelligence-sharing network that consists of Australia, Canada, the United States, Britain and New Zealand, to issue a similar ban.New ZealandBecame the latest country to target TikTok, imposing a ban on the use of the app on devices with access to the parliamentary network amid cybersecurity concerns. United KingdomWould ban TikTok on government phones with immediate effect, and asked the National Cyber Security Centre to look at the potential vulnerability of government data from social media apps and risks around how sensitive information could be accessed and used.ScotlandTikTok will be removed from Scottish Parliament phones and devices amid security concerns, Sky News reports.IndiaBanned TikTok and dozens of other apps by Chinese developers on all devices in June 2020, claiming that they were potentially harmful to the country’s security and integrity.AfghanistanIs in talks to ban TikTok and video game PUBG, with the Taliban claiming those were leading Afghan youths “astray.”PakistanBanned TikTok at least four times, with the latest ban ending in November, over what the government said was immoral and indecent content on the app. BelgiumBelgian federal government employees will no longer be allowed to use TikTok on their work phones, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said on March 10.CanadaThe nation has banned TikTok on government-issued devices due to security risks.Taiwan Banned TikTok and some other Chinese apps on state-owned devices and in December 2022 launched a probe into the social media app over suspected illegal operations on the islandUnited States The U.S. government’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a powerful national security body, in 2020 unanimously recommended ByteDance divest TikTok because of fears that user data could be passed on to China’s government.In early March, legislators from both major U.S. parties introduced a bill to ban the popular app in the United States.Congress previously passed a bill in December 2022 to ban TikTok on federal devices.U.S. Educational InstitutionsBoise State University, University of Oklahoma, University of Texas-Austin, and West Texas A&M University are some of the schools to ban TikTok on university devices and Wi-Fi networks.U.S. StatesTexas, Maryland, Alabama and Utah are among over 25 states that have issued orders to staff against using TikTok on government devices.European Commission and European ParliamentThe European Union’s executive arm, the European Commission, has issued an order to ban the use of popular Chinese app TikTok on its staff’s phones due to cybersecurity concerns. Separately, the European Parliament also banned the app from staff phones. More

Yi’s remarks in the wake of the global banking crisis were quoted in a statement posted on the People’s Bank of China website.China had taken a series of measures to curb financial risks and to guard against systemic financial risks, Yi said.”If financial risks emerge, they will harm the interests of the general public and may even cause social problems,” Yi said.Yi said that the country’s foreign exchange conversion quota of $50,000 per person per year was able to meet most people’s demands for school expenses, travel and trade. More

LONDON (Reuters) – Banks in the European Union must be “conservative” with dividends and other payouts after recent turmoil in the sector, and focus on keeping their cash buffers topped up, the European Union’s banking watchdog has told Reuters.Jose Manuel Campa, chair of the European Banking Authority, said banks had strong capital and liquidity buffers, with a key measure of profitability now at a decade high.But it was unclear how rapidly rising interest rates will ultimately affect the economy and customers of banks, he said.”The impact will come for sure,” Campa told Reuters. “That impact we will continue to monitor.”Paris-based EBA ensures national banking supervisors apply EU banking rules, and coordinates regular health checks of banks across the bloc, with the results of the latest stress test due in the summer.Banking shares tumbled last month after collapses of Silicon Valley Bank and other U.S. lenders, and the forced takeover of ailing Credit Suisse by UBS.These events should prompt EU lenders to take a closer look at their capital planning, particularly dividends and other distributions, to bolster market and customer confidence, Campa said.”They should look at conservative scenarios,” he said. While banks now have very strong liquidity positions, they will have to pay back loans from central banks, he said. “We need to make sure that they remain with sufficient so-called high quality liquid assets,” said Campa, a former senior official at Spain’s Santander (BME:SAN) bank.Banks should pass on rises in interest rates to depositors given the ease with which they move their money to another bank online, which caused problems at Silicon Valley Bank, Campa said.”The banks will have to be very prudent in how they price, and be active in how they keep their depositors,” Campa said. There has been some worry about “unrealised” losses in bond portfolios of banks, also a factor in the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.”American banks have about 20% of their balance sheet in fixed income portfolios. EU banks only have 11.3%. We are asking supervisors to monitor,” Campa said.CDS MARKET A “CONCERN”The market for credit default swaps (CDS) is now an “area of concern” for regulators after sharp volatility in CDS for Deutsche Bank (ETR:DBKGn), Campa said.”We are really trying to understand from that episode what are the interlinkages of those markets. I think all authorities are assessing this,” Campa said.EU securities watchdog ESMA is also looking at the CDS markets, and the derivatives industry says regulators already have data on the market.”We need to understand how these markets are working, how liquid they are, and how easy it is for small quantities of positions to really move prices,” Campa said.There is no evidence, however, that recent banking turmoil shows the need for a rethink in banking rules, Campa said.”The global consensus is that we should implement the rules that were approved after the global financial crisis,” Campa said.”What we have learned so far in the last two weeks is that the rules have helped rather than hurt.”The EU is due to update its framework for closing failing big banks to include medium sized lenders.”I think that’s good. I encourage them to go in that direction,” Campa said.Critics say Credit Suisse’s takeover showed that post-financial crisis rules to end “too big to fail” banks and avoid public help have not worked.”I think the Credit Suisse event shows that resolving a large systemic bank is always going to be difficult. I don’t think we can ever be 100% comfortable. We have made a lot of progress, but it was always going to be difficult.” More