Trying his hardest to sew a silk purse from a sow’s ear, Thailand’s tourism minister on Monday called the current coronavirus crisis an “opportunity” for Thailand’s tourism industry and touted investment in stocks even as markets worldwide crashed.
The spin cycle was on high when Pipat Ratchakitprakarn spoke to the media March 9 as the Stock Exchange of Thailand plunged to lowest level since 2016 and markets from China to New York lost as much as 8 percent.
Pipat called the current business climate “an opportunity to improve our competitive capabilities” and that MPs who met March 5 agreed it’s a chance to improve tour guides’ performance and develop tourism destinations with government support, such as cutting fuel taxes on airlines and loan interest rates.
Other financial-relief measures being bandied about include lowering airport passenger taxes on tourists, providing low-interest loans to tourism industry businesses and allowing Chinese tourists to reschedule travel plans to Thailand without penalty.
Clearly unaware of the red ink flooding world markets as he spoke, Pipat said he saw now as a good time to invest in the Chinese stock market, which he said is supported strongly by Beijing and the Chinese central bank, which is pour yuan into the system.
He even put in a plug for a privately held investment firm and their various Chinese mutual funds. Meanwhile, the Shanghai market was falling 3 percent and the Shenzhen market 4 percent.
Pipat said tourism officials are stressing worldwide that Thailand is not the source of the Covid-19 outbreak and that strong measures are in place that have contained the virus.
He added that the presidents of the Board of Trade, and Tourism Council of Thailand will join a workshop to draft measures to boost the tourism industry for the rest of the year.
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