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Published on August 28, 2007

As the offering of Bt40 billion bonds opened yesterday, they were already oversubscribed. Crowds of investors lined up at the doors of commercial banks before they opened.

A retired woman was waiting at the Nonthaburi branch of Krung Thai Bank early in the morning. She was No 3 in the line. When the bank opened its doors, the lady was told that the bonds had already run out but she could put her name on a waiting list.

This overwhelming interest in the bonds happened nationwide because they will provide returns of 5-6 per cent, considerably higher than government bond yields as of August 20.

Apparently, many commercial banks saved the bonds for their prime customers, leaving only a small number to be subscribed by small investors.

The BOT announced that a total of Bt75 billion worth of saving bonds were booked yesterday, even though the central bank had originally planned to issue Bt40 billion in the first lot only.

But small investors should not be worried. The central bank later decided to increase the number of bonds issued to cover all the bookings and investors on the waiting lists on the first day.

The central bank will also open booking until noon today but cannot guarantee that all the investors who book the bonds today will actually receive them.

 

Rice mystery

When Commerce Minister Krirk-krai Jirapaet was quoted as saying that he was ready to quit if he failed to properly manage the government's rice stockpile of 4 million tonnes, he took many people by surprise.

The news was played up as Krirk-krai is known to be a person who won't give up easily.

Yesterday, however, Krirk-krai aide Skol Harnsuthivarin ran to the Press Room at the ministry to clear up Krirk-krai's statement.

"The minister explained that he would promptly resign from his position if the rice stock problem was caused by him and he failed to manage it," Skol said.

"However, the problem was caused by the ousted government, while the current minister can only be responsible for gradually releasing these stockpiles to the markets."

This was not the first time that the press had to requote Krirk-krai. Previously, Krirk-krai said he would revise upward the export growth target to 15 per cent after significant export growth of 16.8 per cent in the first half of the year. However, when export figures dropped to only 5.9 per cent last month, Krirk-krai said he had never said that he would revise the export target upward. Instead, he said that this was just his projection at the time, but the press didn't clearly understand what he said.

 He left the reporters scratching their heads, wondering whether he was speaking the same language.

busdsk@nationgroup.com