2019 Outlook | DFDL Thailand

A Thai Election

Now 2019 perspectives. So of course, what all business people are first asking is, ‘What about the election? What will be the effect of the election on the business environment?’ We are getting very close to the announced date of the election, it’s only 2 months away. And from a business standpoint, we don’t see any effect in terms of confirmation of large projects and large transactions for now.

US-China Trade War

We anticipate that a number of investments which were made in China will be relocated to Thailand. But on the other hand, we should not forget as well that the Thailand-US relationship is also very tight, and there is a Thai-US amity treaty which has been implemented for decades. So there will be a subtle positioning that Thailand will be looking at maintaining, and a balance that I think we will see carefully maintained in the next couple of months.

Renewable Energy

The reality is that 2018 has not been super exciting from a renewable energy perspective in Thailand. We are waiting for the amendment of the Power Development Plan. But based on our research, we understand that there will be a number of changes, and there’s a plan which could open new perspectives for the development of renewable energy, in particular from a net metering perspective. So we need to have reasonable expectations, and if there is to be a new net metering scheme possible under the new plan, that will probably be on a
progressive basis, and they will probably start with a pilot project. But we are definitely looking into this, and hopefully into new programs for solar rooftops and other renewable energy projects.

Changes To Legislation

Now in terms of all the legislation, we see a likely continuation with a number of the 2018 new legislations I mentioned earlier, about the expected notification implementing the Trade Competition Act that will regulate merger control. The enactment of the data protection law. We also expect the adoption of a Private Asset Management Act, which will also give a new substance to private asset management structuring for Thai investors. So a number of new things, but of course the key question remains: election, or no election, or postpone the
election, and this will certainly change the timing of the adoption of these new legislations. So, a lot of things to be watched. Our team will be carefully monitoring all these changes and we will keep you updated, thank you.

DFDL Contact