Misreporting by the Western Press, scandals and more.
Misreporting by the Western Press -and more. (Again)
A couple of months ago there was a FT article (London's Financial Times) suggesting Chinese tourism was dropping off in Thailand, when just the exact opposite is/was true. Chinese tourism has been nothing short of an outright boom, growing 30% or more year-to-date -and the horrific bomb in early August hardly dented this. There was a nice TOT graphic on this just a couple of days ago in the BKK post showing the explosive Thai tourist growth numbers from ytd, through end of August. Why this wrong reporting by such a global financial publication?
"Chinese tourists spurn SE Asia holidays Key Southeast Asian markets have seen a marked drop in Chinese tourists, a growth sector across much of the globe, as air crashes and..." FT, July 27 2015.
Here you can see an older article on exploding tourism here all year long, preceding that FT article.
http://www.thaitravelblogs.com/2015/08/top-10-nationalities-to-visit-thailand-january-to-june-2015/
Another Bloomberg article mentioned how exports have dropped off considerably in Thailand this year "despite the 9% drop in its currency". Failing to mention that the Baht dropped its 9% just over the past 2-3 months; as before then it was one of the world's strongest currency (through May of 2015); which was back then equally was never so mentioned.
Then there was an article in the NY Times 2 days ago where that article mentioned "Thailand being Asia's worst economic performer". No mention that is has ultra low unemployment and debt levels, and still likely growth rates which are higher then EU or close to if not higher, then in the US. Take a look at this letter rebuttal, as published in the BKK Post today:
http://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/704080/silent-people-s-state Look for the letter with the title: "Painting a false picture".
One has to ask why such on-off regular misreporting by Western Press which I have noticed for many years? Same is true at other levels. One example, Western Banks routinely tell clients to transfer Baht to Thailand as otherwise they may experience "delays besides bad exchange rates". When in fact, through my long 25 year experience here, just the opposite is true. Never purchase Thai Baht in any Western country at their banks, as they will most likely not give you a competitive exchange rate...and rarely if ever do Thai banks sit on remitting funds. The same cannot be said by some foreign banks. Lately its been in the news how Deutsche Bank will lay off 25% of its work force. Wow for a global institution this is a huge and dramatic downsizing! Never anything on this scale by a large company has happened here before... Then, we now read about how Volkswagen, one if not the biggest global car producer, is currently being criminally investigated for purposely misleading emission standards affecting 11 million or more cars! Fines to the tune of 15 Bill. US$ or more, are likely forthcoming...this after similar huge fines have continuously been levied on the world biggest Banks for similar egregious violations. All this comes on top of the global FIFA corruption scandal still unfolding. One has to ask what other nonsense is the Western press is reporting, or not, which is boarding on outright misinformation. Like a clock which is worse then broken... instead portrays itself to give the right time -when often it does not and so deceives. Or I ask: why do individuals not give these (or their banks!) a hard time for outright telling them things which the facts suggest otherwise, often at the expense of misinformation on Thailand. Surely this country has lots of contentious issues, shortcomings and problems to be addressed but one has to wonder why misreporting prevails at such a huge scale? Best Regards, Paul A. Renaud. www.thaistocks.com
