So on the tourism front. Let's let's talk about that as we come
out of the pandemic. Where are we on the recovery?
Obviously, tourism numbers are starting to recover.
But there are headwinds in the global economy.
How would you assess the recovery? Tourism is the engine to drive the
economy of Thailand, especially next year and onward.
But we already the government has already decided to gather it like
Chamber of Commerce, that learning from the past.
We want to grow with quality and sustainability as well as responsibility
tourism. We already put in our 20 years plan for
Thailand. What does it mean by quality?
It doesn't mean that we only one dowell to tourists.
Actually, what we won is our size pocket of tourists.
But when they come to Thailand, we want them to understand Thailand with the
local communities, local products. We come up with the terms call happy
model, meaning that now and onward accommodation like hotel restaurants in
Thailand who have a higher standards. But safety, security, it will mean you
eat more local food because we want to make sure that tourism is not only just
to keep happiness to tourists, but also to share happiness with the local
community. Reducing the gap between the super rich
and very poor. It should be wealth, its ability.
Bulletin. He wanted you to have better health.
Lift bell after pandemic, people care more for health.
So we have sport tourism to come up with more better medical package.
Medical tourism. I think you have a new visa for medical
tourism. Right.
As well. Right.
Right. And what lessons were learned when the
Chinese stopped coming? Because there was the pandemic, everyone
stopped coming. But in particular, the Chinese, because
1 in 4 pre pandemic of visitor arrivals, which mainland Chinese.
And I guess they're still not coming because of Covid 0 policies.
Yes. Up to now this year, we we are quite
sure we will get about 10 million international tourists coming to
Thailand. This is like one fourth of what we used
to get. There was 40 million people.
Yes. Right.
But but now we received a big number coming from ASEAN, our neighboring
countries, from India, from Hong Kong, from from from Taiwan,
even from Europe and the US. Next year, we hope that Chinese will
start to return. But then at the same time, they learn to
create the violence. So not totally rely on one particular
destination countries. So we would like to receive more from
every region of the world. And as I say, quality, meaning that we
hope that you can spend more time with us, spending more per day, stay a bit
longer and with the new product of Thailand and the baht is weak against
the US dollar. So that should help, obviously.
Let's talk about the the commercial banks care bank, Kazakhstan.
One bank is the chairperson of that. It did miss earnings a bit in the third
quarter. There are some headwinds in the economy
right now. Inflation is high.
The rates are starting to go up. But many of the commercial banks in
Thailand, like Kay Bank are have a lot of their loan book tied to the tourism
sector, whether it's hotels and resorts. Do you see the prospect because of the
pain we've had for three years of no tourism, is there going to be a specter
of rising bad debts? Inclusive is very important to us.
So we need to help them because this is long term.
We are quite sure that they will recover.
So the private banks, not only does it gone bad, we work together with the
government in order to create soft loan asset warehousing so that for them to
recover. And we are quite sure that they will
recover starting from next year onward. But again, the process strategy of of
care banking, we have three strategies. Number one is reimagine commercial and
consumer lending by reaching out to small pocket customers through digital
channel with reasonable pricing. And number two is to get more deposits.
You're looking to raise your deposit and through the digital channels.
Right. And touch upon the nonbank.
The one that we don't know then before. But we can do that by having a strategy
of wider customer base. With
our partner collaborating with partners, as well as our
penetration to high growth market like ABC plus 3.
Well, earlier you said that you need to help your partners in the tourism area
because they've helped, they felt the pain.
Does that mean KeyBanc is willing to accept more credit losses than normally
they would order private banks? We learned from the past, so therefore
we always make reserve whenever we give extra loan.
So in terms of stability of the bank, I think that is fine.
But then we need to balance between stability and a future growth.
And so therefore, what we can see that that trend is coming back and this is
the backbone of Thailand's economy. And so therefore,
we are quite sure that there will start to growth and meaning that the bank will
have a tough future. Now, obviously, there are headwinds
growing in the global economy with the Fed raising interest rates and other
borrowing costs around the world that are going up.
Inflation is still very high. I talked at Bali at G.
20 with John Denton. He is in the International Chamber of
Commerce head. And he told me he's very concerned about
rising debt loads in emerging markets. Thailand knows very well about rising
debt loads and financial crises. 1997 was very painful for Thailand.
Do you see any parallels? Do you think there is a emerging market
debt crisis brewing? Well,
yesterday, the minister of finance was here at the Bloomberg Business
Summit, and he he said it clearly that there is a concern.
But then at the same time, we believe, I mean, to gather not only the private
bank, but together with the government, Bank of Thailand is still under control.
But we have to be extra care that this debt do not go beyond the limit.
Right. But
we know that there should be an understanding to support them.
And from the head of Chamber of Commerce, from the Chamber of Commerce,
it's not only the money, but it's also other support that they need.
For example, market B, we will connect the dots between market and technology
and many kind of thing to trend and to up.