What's new in business news: May 23, 2014

Impact of foreign reactions to coup on tourism, investment & relations, free flow of nurses with English skills in Asean & Loei villagers beaten up by thugs hired by mine owner.

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Foreign reactions to coup and their impact on tourism, foreign investment & international relations

22/05/2014 

Foreign reaction to the military coup poured in overnight in Bangkok, and it was virtually all negative. Southeast Asian neighbours urged caution with Malaysia warning its nationals to defer non-essential travel to Thailand. The Singapore government issued a warning to its citizens planning to visit Thailand: "Singaporeans should seriously reconsider visiting Thailand at the moment. The situation is unpredictable and volatile, and may evolve quite rapidly." Japan, Thailand's biggest foreign investor, stopped short of a travel warning but made clear its concern, as Toyota and Honda curtailed night-time shifts at their Thai plants because of the curfew.

Western governments including the US and the EU mostly condemned the coup. The United States Defence Department was considering cutting back military cooperation, military-to-military assistance and joint military exercises.The Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (Exercise CARAT) is a series of US-backed naval drills in the Pacific, mostly bilateral, involving the US Navy and the navies of Thailand, Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore. While CARAT is a welcome exercise for the Royal Thai Navy, the biggest issue between the US and Thai militaries is the annual Cobra Gold war games, involving around 40,000 troops from at least half a dozen countries. The 2014 exercises were held in February, but planning already is under way for Cobra Gold 2015, and could be halted. The Thai military receives only around $6 million in US aid, an insignificant part of its budget. But US sanctions would cause a loss of face and dent the image of the Thai military, including the new, ruling junta. While military sanctions are supposedly automatic against any nation invoking a coup d'etat, the president and the Pentagon have wide latitude in deciding what sanctions to apply, if any.

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HEALTHCARE 

Free flow of nurses in Asean & the need for English skills 

With the opening up of Asean in December, 2015, restrictions on seven occupational areas — including nursing — will be lifted.  Thailand has faced a shortage of trained nurses for the past decade due to, among other things, low wages, demanding working hours and inadequate benefits. This has led to private hospitals increasingly looking to fill the gap with trained nurses from the Philippines who are willing to accept the Thai wages, which are more than double the amount they receive in their home country. There are more nursing graduates than available paid jobs in the Philippines, which is another reason they seek work elsewhere.

The restrictions on Filipina nurses getting into the Thai health system now include language barriers, the amount of experience they have and whether they can circumvent how they are classified. All nurses working in Thailand are required to obtain a licence by the Thailand Nursing and Midwifery Council (TNC), the test for which is conducted in Thai. This means that hospitals wanting to employ foreign nurses who don’t have Thai language skills work around the system by employing them as "medical coordinators", who respond to the needs of patients except for the administration of medicine.

Under the Mutual Recognition Arrangement on Nursing Services, designed to facilitate the mobility of nursing professionals within the Asean region, a foreign nurse may apply for a licence in an Asean country in accordance with the laws and regulations of the host country provided that he or she has already obtained a licence in the home country and has had practical experience of not less than three years. The TNC, which regulates the practice of registered nurses here, will change some licensing regulations to facilitate such mobility once the Asean Economic Community (AEC) is set up late next year.To make it easier for nurses to practice, the paper-based exams will then be conducted in English, but basic Thai language skills will still be needed to be able to communicate with patients.

In one example, Filipina nurse Maria Judith Avestruz was considered lucky to land a full-time job at Manila’s semi-private Philippine Heart Centre, where she stayed for almost three years. But the pay was very low, so in October, 2012, she decided to come to Thailand, where she was accepted right away by Phyathai 2 Hospital as an international case manager. The job entailed caring for international patients and coordinating care with other staff. Last year, Mrs Avestruz was promoted to an international nurse educator, which requires her to educate staff in English and understand the standards of international hospitals. With high-level English language skills, Filipino nurses are in demand by local hospitals geared towards international services.

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CRIME & BUSINESS 

Loei villagers beaten up by thugs hired by mine owner 

[From op-ed page commentary by Wasant Techawongtham, former News Editor, Bangkok Post with full article here ]

The struggle of anti-mine protesters in Loei demonstrates state failure to enforce local communities’ right to have a say over the use of their natural resources and presents a good case study for the urgent need for national reform and increase public participation and decentralization in government. 

About 300 men with their face covered by ski masks, carrying sticks, knives and guns, went on a terror rampage at Ban Na Nong Bong village in Loei from 10pm-5am on May 15.  When the armed thugs arrived, they started beating up villagers. Some were even tied around the wrists and ankles. The thugs then dismantled barriers that had been erected and allowed through a convoy of trucks carrying copper ore. The villagers identified the leaders of the armed gang as Lt Gen Poramet Pomnak and his son Poramin. Police were of no help and also came too late three weeks earlier when a group of armed men led by Lt Gen Poramet came to the village to request that the barriers be lifted. Residents of the village and nearby villages have been embroiled in a long-running dispute with a gold mine operated by a company named Tungkah Harbour. The gold mine was accused of poisoning the villagers’ land and water supplies and causing serious health problems. Attempts to demand the mine be shut down led nowhere. In a desperate last resort, the villagers put up barriers on a road through the villages to prevent trucks from the mine from passing through. 

The villagers long realized they were up against an opponent whose influence casts a wide net across government and politics. Thanawut Thimsuwan, president of the Loei administration organisation, whose family has long dominated local politics, had tried to convince a village leader to concede to Tungkum’s demand. Loei governor Wirot Jiwarangsan employed a familiar red herring tactic, blaming “some NGOs” for instigating local resistance. The head of the government agency that oversees mining responded in the same way. Laws are said to give wide authority to politicians and top bureaucrats who work together with big businesses. On mineral resources, for instance, the law gives officials the power to approve mining concessions as they deem fit in exchange for very low returns for the state. In the Tungkum case, as in similar cases elsewhere, when public hearings were required for licence approval, opposing locals were prevented from participating with help from officials and the police.

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