Thai Property News

Umesh Pandey writing for The Bangkok Post reports Asia, increasingly the centre of gravity for the world’s investors, continues to fare well as a region for doing business, despite policy volatility in some markets.In the recent Doing Business in 2008 report released by the World Bank and Industrial Finance Corp late last month, Singapore led the global table the second consecutive year followed by Hong Kong (ranked fourth), Thailand (15th), Malaysia (24th) and South Korea (30th).

Among the areas that were looked at were the starting of a business, in terms of the number of procedures and days, the cost, and minimum capital requirements.  It is easiest in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Thailand, and hardest in Indonesia and the Philippines.

With regard to dealing with licences, in terms of the number of procedures and days and cost, doing business is easiest in Singapore, Thailand and South Korea, and most difficult in India and China.

The Dutch financial group ING did its own survey on investment behaviour patterns and found that despite a possible downturn in the US economy, investor sentiment across Asia, with the exception of Japan, was positive and the outlook remained so for next three months.

ING reported that respondents in India and China were most optimistic about their countries’ economic outlook, followed by those in Malaysia and the Philippines while investors in Hong Kong and Singapore took a more cautiously optimistic approach.

At the other end of the spectrum, investors in Australia, Japan and New Zealand are less optimistic and investors from countries that have previously experienced an economic downturn, namely Indonesia and Thailand, were more upbeat about the future of their economies.

The “ING Investor Sentiment Tracking Study” was done with the aim to gauge changes in market sentiments, understand current and future intentions in investment behaviours and assess trends in risk absorption.

The markets included Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand.  

• Local stock trading was the favourite investment tool in seven out of 13 surveyed countries, namely Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea, China, Taiwan and Thailand.
• Property investment is the favourite investment tool in Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia and India.
• Cash is the most preferred investment in Malaysia and the Philippines.

The most coveted property markets were China, followed by Australasia and Vietnam.

ING said that most investors in Asia, except for Japan, believes their returns on investment had increased over the last three months. However, looking into the next three months, investors take a more conservative approach and expect a smaller return on investments.

Investors in China, India and the Philippines were the exception, believing that returns on their investments will be just as strong in the next three months.

To read the full reports, go to www.Bangkokpost.com  and www.ing.com