Krungsri Consumer, a Bank of Ayudhya (BAY) unit operating credit cards as well as personal and auto loans, will transfer all 300 staff of HSBC (Thailand) and the local retail banking business of HSBC, excluding credit cards, to its portfolio next month.

As it opens up to new foreign investments, Burma shows strong potential for retail business, according to a study by Thailand's Hypertrade Consulting.

Egco Group has set aside about Bt10 billion to invest in power plants overseas in a bid to keep its revenue at least at the Bt5 billion level annually.

Staedtler, one of the world's leading manufacturers of writing, colouring and drawing instruments, will expand its Thai manufacturing facilities for mid- and lower-range pencils and other products.

Charoen Pokphand Foods expects sales revenue this year to pass Bt300 billion, then double to Bt600 billion within five years, thanks to rising demand from overseas markets.

Sennheiser Asia has appointed Generation S as its distributor for the Thai market. It expects the firm to gain about 30 per cent of the headphones market by 2015.

Advanced Info Service's shareholding structure complies with the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission's regulations against foreign dominance of telecom operators, said AIS chief operating officer Mark Chong Chin Kok.

The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission's telecom committee has approved its time frame for the auctioning the long-awaited 2.1-gigahertz spectrum licences.

The House energy committee is threatening to invoke an act of Parliament to issue a summons on those implicated in a PTT scandal, after a no-show yesterday.

Thailand's economic problems last year should not in themselves drag the country's credit rating down much, but the government's response to those challenges remains an important factor in Fitch Ratings' assessment, it says.