Nov.

24th

Membership Payments
New Members
Survey
BOI request for flood feedback

 

 

 
 
 
 

Dear Members,

 
For some strange reason over the past few weeks I find myself humming the song Rain by the Kiwi band Dragon. Every time I listen to or read the latest news I can’t help but think of the old British comedy series “Dad’s Army” where the old boy keeps running in shouting “don’t panic, don’t panic Captain Mannering”. Joking aside, this is a terrible catastrophe for Thailand which is going to have some massive long term consequences, some of which will only be realised once the waters finally recede. For those of you that live in areas that are flooded or have businesses impacted by the floods you have the sympathy and support of the NZTCC committee.

The BOI is asking for feedback regarding “investors' concerns on the flood situation and Thailand's economy and role as a destination to invest”. We invite you to offer any thoughts you may have which we will compile and forward to BOI.

I can’t help but wonder if the policy of saving Bangkok at all costs is going to come back and haunt both the government and the Bangkok Governor. Although the order appears to have been given now to open the floodgates it may be too little, too late and the impact could potentially be much greater to Bangkok than if it had happened a week or more ago.

With all of this in mind, NZTCC has set aside 50,000THB to support disaster relief efforts which will be channeled via the Board of Trade and the Thai Chamber of Commerce. The Thai Chamber of Commerce has branches all over the country so is in a good position to gather information about where the greatest need is and to distribute aid accordingly. We will post details about how to make donations through these organisations on our website and encourage members to donate through this channel.

After all the doom and gloom, lets think about something a little more positive such as the Rugby World Cup final this weekend. I have a very good feeling about the All Black’s ability to pull it off this time. They have certainly played with a great deal of focus throughout the tournament. On the other hand you can never write off the French as they have an ability to rise to the occasion.

The date for the Black & White Ball 2012 has been set so please pencil Saturday 11th February 2012 in your diaries. This is a terrific event that is usually a sell-out with over 500 people attending an evening of fun that showcases the best of New Zealand culture, food and wine. We are currently seeking sponsors for the event so please contact us if you are interested. Please note that surplus from the Ball not earmarked for existing community projects will be used on projects to aid recovery from the floods.

Thursday 27th October is going to be a busy night for the Chamber at the Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit. First of all we have our AGM and we encourage members to attend or send us your proxy. We are also always looking for fresh faces on the committee and welcome nominations for the committee.  Following the AGM will be our usual Corporate Knight.  We will be presenting the cheque to the charity supported by the RWC events held over three weekends, to Nak Suu Rugby Academy, during the Corporate Knight.

I would like to thank Gareth Hughes and RSM for sponsoring the AGM and Corporate Knight once again. They have been the sponsors for this event for many years and we appreciate their continued support. 

We look forward to seeing you all at the Sheraton Grande on the 27th for both the AGM and the Corporate Knight. Stay safe over the coming week and I wish you all luck dealing with whatever happens.

Kind regards,

Sponsored By

   

Some recent Kiwi Snippets and Kiwis in the news:

There are more than 40 million sheep in New Zealand, but only 10 of them can claim that they became famous today.Thousands turned out to watch the city's first sheep race.
The Baa Blacks raced on an 80m track, which had hay at the end, luring them to the finishing line.  "Lost Lamb", "Lazy Ram", and "She's A Beaut" were three members of the squad, which were kitted out in black rugby-style jerseys.
They came up from their quake-stricken Christchurch farm on a truck, after nine months of planning, which David Cone,owner and event organiser, said involved convincing authorities to allow the race to go ahead.
But they'll be making an even longer journey next year, when they head to Australia to be one of the star attractions at an event with an expected crowd of 2 million people.
You see, these aren't just your ordinary sheep.  Cone has trained them especially for racing and there is one sheep that usually wins - but he'll be hard to spot as the sheep's racing numbers are constantly swapped.

NZ wines win gold medal haul in London

Kiwi wine has won a record clutch of gold medals at the prestigious International Wine & Spirits Competition (IWSC) in Britain.
New Zealand took a ''phenomenal'' 305 awards including 18 gold medals, 15 of which were Best in Class, New Zealand Winegrowers said. This beat its previous tally of 11 golds in 2008. 

The competition average was just under five gold medals per country. 

New Zealand is now the fastest-growing country of origin for wine in both volume and value in the United Kingdom, and exports of New Zealand wine to the US in June this year were up 21 per cent - making the US the third largest market for New Zealand wine.

Kiwis to take on land speed record  

TA Kiwi team is to challenge the World Land speed Record for the first time and today unveiled a full-scale model of their speed-machine at The Cloud on Auckland's Queens Wharf.
The Jetblack challenge aims to contest the record by 2016 with a team led by Kiwi entrepreneur Richard Nowland and piloted by former Royal New Zealand Airforce Wing Commander Stephen Hunt.
The current record is 763mph and was set by Britain's Andy Green in October 1997 at Black Rock Desert, in Nevada, USA. Green's winning run was the first supersonic landspeed record.
The car will sport solid, aerospace-grade aluminium wheels with no tyres, have an all-composite chassis and will be powered by a turbofan engine and two "hybrid" rockets - similar to those used for space exploration.
Possible locations for Jetblack's record attempt include India, the Arabian Gulf, USA and Australia.

WELLINGTON FIRM LINKS UP WITH PIXAR 

Wellington supercomputing start-up GreenButton is working with Disney's animation giant Pixar to make its movie rendering software available to anyone over the web. 

The RenderMan software has been used to produce most of the world's latest hits, including by Weta Digital for Avatar and Lord of the Rings, for the Harry Potter movies and kids' favourites Cars and Toy Story. 

GreenButton – one of the capital's most promising tech start-ups – has received more than US$1 million from Microsoft and counts several of the country's leading technologists among its investors. 

Its application can be built into software products and lets computer users access supercomputer power at the click of a button as they need it and without having to invest in their own systems.

Weta Digital managing director Joe Letteri has described the RenderMan software as the ultimate creative tool. "It's the easiest and most flexible way to create a picture from an idea". 

The Wellington firm was last month named as the global winner of the Windows Azure independent software vendor partner of the year award.
It has a "Global Alliance" with the software giant, that will see the two work together to make Azure available to software users around the world through the GreenButton application. 

GreenButton's application is already embedded in six software products, including Auckland firm Right Hemisphere's Deep Exploration 3-D rendering software, and has more than 4000 registered users in more than 70 countries.

Oct. 19  – The New Zealand dollar rose as a rally on Wall Street driven by bank earnings countered the impact of a warning about France’s credit rating on sentiment.

The kiwi dollar rose at 79.67 U.S. cents at 8am from 79.36 US cents at 5pm yesterday, after it dipped to 78.71 U.S. in overnight trading.

As the New Zealand market started a new day the United States stock market was powering ahead, helped by a Bank of America profit report. The Standard & Poor’s 500 was up 2.2 percent, having earlier been down as much as 0.8 percent.

The average price of dairy products rose 1.7 percent in Fonterra Cooperative’s latest online auction. The average winning price rose to US$3,540 a metric tonne, climbing from the lowest level in more than a year in the previous auction two weeks ago.

“The market didn’t pay great attention to the Fonterra auction but it was a solid result. We have seen commodity prices recover a fair way in the last fortnight,” said Mike Burrowes, market strategist at Bank of New Zealand.

He said currency markets were in a holding pattern ahead of the European Union summit this weekend.

The optimism evident at the start of the week that European leaders were serious about tackling the region’s debt problems has waned as politicians moved to manage expectations lower.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the summit will mark an “important step” though not a final one in resolving the debt crisis.

A warning by Moody’s that it may put France’s Aaa rating on a negative outlook in the next three months was another damp on sentiment. Investors want to be reassured Europe’s financial system can withstand a potential Greek debt default and that Greece is making progress.

The impact of a weak Europe was also evidence yesterday when China reported its economy grew 9.1 percent in the third quarter from a year ago, which was less than expected and the slowest pace since 2009.

The New Zealand dollar was little changed at 77.58 Australian cents from 77.65 cents yesterday, and rose to 61.15 yen from 60.96 yen yesterday. It declined to 57.82 euro cents from 57.57 cents, and rose to 50.59 British pence from 50.16 pence.

The trade-weighted index was at 69.73 from 69.52 yesterday.

Content Sourced from scoop.co.nz

Membership  Payments 

New Members

We would like to welcome the following new member to the Chamber : 

 

Survey

The New Zealand Thai Chamber of Commerce is to run a survey of our members. We would like to understand in a more quantitative way the views and opinions of members.

Our specific objectives of running the survey are to:

• Provide input to for our 2012 business plan
• Better understanding our members expectations and our delivery against those expectations
• Ascertaining if members do perceive value from their membership
• The effectiveness of support through our office, and supporting the operations of the chamber – events, communications etc.

We have been kindly offered the services of Business Research Specialists (BRS), an NZTCC member, to develop and run the survey. BRS are leading specialists in B2B market research and surveys. The survey will be web based and should take no more than 15 minutes to complete. 

For more details please see web announcement HERE

BOI Request for Flood Feeback