FTSE Russell Convenes | Episode 3, Asean

Is the Thai Market Thriving?

June 1, 2023

The Thai market is growing in 2023, with its GDP as well as number of investors overtaking pre-pandemic levels. With over 40 Thai listed companies appearing on our FTSE4Good Index Series, ESG is also proving to be a promising area for growth in the Thai market. In this episode of FTSE Russell Convenes ASEAN, Pakorn Peetathawatchai, President of The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET), talks to us about Thailand’s market growth, how program trading activities are shaping the proportion of foreign and domestic investors and ways international investors can either directly or indirectly invest in the Thai and ASEAN market.

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actually the GDP and the real business, the earnings growth has been coming back,surpassing the pre-COVIDPakorn, thank you so much for being here today. You're welcome.So talk to me about some developments in your marketthat international investors should take note of.During the past five years, Thai capital market has been growing quite a lot.Our IPO during the past five years is roughly 20 billion USD.Roughly 4 billion. U.S. dollar a year.Now the trading value is going up to something like 2.6 billion U.S.dollar per day and roughly 40 to 50 IPOevery year from various industriesbig, small and manufacturing technology services.The number of investors are growing a lot alsoduring the past few years, the number going upto 5 million investors account in Thailand.So those are quite an improvement because before the COVIDactually we have roughly only 3 million accounts.But during the COVID period, actually people start to open accountnon face to face more and they start to invest in the marketsignificantly, and our market has been very wellacknowledged on the sustainability concept practice of the listed company.Nowadays there are 40 Thai listed company in FTSE.So I think it shows a lot of recognitionfrom the institutional investor all over the world.How has the retail and institutional participationgrown in your market and ASEAN as a whole? In the Thai market at the moment, the foreign investor proportion has been growingvery quickly to the program trading and high frequencytrading activities that start to increase in Thailand.Good thing is that the retail investor side,like I mentioned to you, the number of accounts are growing a lot.So we have new investor coming in and it quite balanced.The activity in the market. In ASEANis quite similar, especially in Indonesia.You heard from that market that they have been improvinga lot on the participation of the retail market.What are some of the channels for global investorsto access ASEAN markets?At the moment?I would say there are two ways, direct and indirect under direct.Certainly the brokerin other countryhas been investing a lot in Thailand.The biggest investorthat we saw come from Singapore,UK, Hong Kong and US.Those are the top four participation that come from oversea.And other second way that investor can participate in ThaiASEAN market, is to the indirect way.ETF mutual fund the ETF.We have one Thailand ETF here listing in the US run by BlackRockand that is one of the largest ETFof Thailand in the world. Yeah.What is your outlook for 2023?I think it's going to be really challengingbecause there are so many uncertainty, especially on the conflictof the Russian and Ukraine, on the price of the oil, on the inflation,on the liquidity that the central bank may cut.all the the the the foreign flow thatit used to be during the the crisis of the COVID.I would say it's a challenging year.But, when you look in to the situation in each market is quite different.For example, when you look at ASEAN, this is a new growing marketand our area are very well diversified in each country.For example, when you think about Thailand,you think about hospitality business, you think about the servicebusiness, you think about the exporting business.Those are the thing that we are very strong.And during the COVID, you will see that these industries in Thailandhas been improving a lot by using technology.And that is why I think we call it the new traditional business industrythat has been growing quite significantly. At the momentthe GDP of our country is going beyond, before the COVID pandemic already.So you can see that even though our industry hasn’t been recover fullyby example on the tourist business or the hospitality businessor the healthcare business, actually the GDP and the real business,the earnings growth has been coming back,surpassing the pre-COVID era already.Terrific. Thank you so much for being here.You're welcome. Thank you so much.

November, 3, 2022 at ASEAN Investment Summit

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