Srettha’s New York visit boosted trade and investment

[reader]

From The Nation

Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin’s visit to New York to attend the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly was successful in fostering relationships and increasing trade and investment with other countries, Prime Minister's Office spokesperson Chai Watcharong said.

Srettha met with several foreign leaders, made five speeches and met with leaders of major corporations, including Tesla, Google, Microsoft, Citibank, JP Morgan, and Estee Lauder. These companies showed interest in investing more in Thailand, Chai said.

Srettha expressed confidence that several foreign investors will invest at least US$5 billion each in Thailand and that he hopes Thai companies will register on the New York Stock Exchange next year.

Talks were also held with FIFA executives about the possibility of Thailand hosting the FIFA World Cup in 2032. Additionally, support for football was increased significantly, with sponsorship raised from the previous 250,000 baht per year to 2 million baht per year.

[vinapu]

13 hours ago, reader said:

 

Talks were also held with FIFA executives about the possibility of Thailand hosting the FIFA World Cup in 2032.

2032 is year of Olympics, FIFA cup will be in 2034 and indeed ASEAN countries expressed interest to host it jointly. Selection will be done 2027

[PeterRS]

14 hours ago, reader said:

From The Nation

Srettha expressed confidence that several foreign investors will invest at least US$5 billion each in Thailand

Well, he has to say something like this, doesn't he? A way of justifying the massive cost of renting his huge Thai plane to get to New York! Let's hope those words don't come back to haunt him next year.

14 hours ago, reader said:

From The Nation

Talks were also held with FIFA executives about the possibility of Thailand hosting the FIFA World Cup in 2032

This rather contradicts the earlier part of that release. Doesn't the journalist realise that World Cups are vanity projects which cost host countries massive amounts of cash? Sure they generate a lot of tourism revenues but not nearly enough to cover costs. Estimated losses from the last 3 world World Cups  - Qatar: US$229 billion, Russia: $16 billion, Brazil : $19.7 billion. Discount Qatar because it had to buld a totally new infrastructure. But Thailand would need to construct several totally new stadia and spend a great deal of cash upgrading others. Plus all the required infrasructure costs. If it decided to combine with other nations, the last joint-country World Cup was Japan/South Korea in 2002. Estimated losses - US$7 billion. 

No doubt the PM is merely parrotting what the previous PM had said in June 2019 that all 10 ASEAN nations would bid for 2034.  By November that year, the number of nations had rather suddenly dropped to 5. By June 2022, the Cambodian Chairman of ASEAN weakened this further by suggesting either 2034 or 2038. With Saudia Arabia and is trillions also ready to bid for the 2034 World Cup, ASEAN doesn't stand a chance.

This is like the Thai businessman who years ago informed the media he was going to bring a Formula 1 Grand Prix night race to the streets of Bangkok. It was sheer fanciful idiocy and could never happen. Singapore's annual F1 Grand Prix costs the city state in the region of $150 million. 60% is paid for by the government. Admittedly, tourism revenues help defray the bulk of the private sector costs. But with average hotel room rates before tax and service in 2022 at S$440 - 11,590 baht at today's rates - how many are going to flood into the region to pay those rates plus inflated air fares? An 1 race in Bangkok was never going to happen - and it didn't!

[omega]

7 hours ago, vinapu said:

2032 is year of Olympics, FIFA cup will be in 2034 and indeed ASEAN countries expressed interest to host it jointly. Selection will be done 2027

This could make good sense to help promote development of ASEAN if the focus is on building infrastructure projects that will provide benefits to the host nations after.

Unfortunately, most countries have been more interested in the prestige of hosting, and would prefer to build vanity projects that look good for a few weeks, and then slowly rot and crumble.

[PeterRS]

3 hours ago, omega said:

This could make good sense to help promote development of ASEAN if the focus is on building infrastructure projects that will provide benefits to the host nations after.

Unfortunately, most countries have been more interested in the prestige of hosting, and would prefer to build vanity projects that look good for a few weeks, and then slowly rot and crumble.

Of course, there is no World Cup in 2032! The next ones will be 2026 in the USA, Canada and Mexico; 2030 and then 2034. So did the Prime Minister actually meet with anyone from FIFA, given he talked about 2032?? Or was this just hot air?

As @omega points out, the infrastucture costs will be huge for most ASEAN countries. Like Qatar last year, Japan and South Korea which hosted in 2002 built mostly new venues. Each had 10 World Cup stadia in 10 different cities from Seoul to Seogwipo in Jeju Island, and from Oita in Kyushu to Sapporo in Hokkaido. Some ASEAN stadia could no doubt be upgraded. Most will likely have to be built from scratch.

Then there has to be consideration for the fans. Most will probably be coming from South and North America, Europe, Japan and Australia. So their basic flight and hotel costs to get to the region will be higher than for previous World Cups. Having then to travel to matches between countries could become an expensive logistical nightmare.

The hosting costs may not be quite as high as hosting an Olympics. Montreal in 1976 ended up with a $1.6 billion deficit and a massive white elephant of a stadium that itself had bled 69% of the total budget. It took the city 30 years to pay off the debts. Athens in 2004 cost a staggering $11 billion and most of its specially built sports facilities have been rotting for years. Like Montreal, hosting a FIFA World Cup will provide wonderful oopportunities for one of South East Asia's favourite occupations - corruption. I predict it will also end up with major debts. It's definiitely a vanity project that will become a huge headache for the region and not a few of its individual countries.

[reader]

Now that you've twice speculated on the upside, I was hoping you could tell us something about the downside. 🙂

[vinapu]

2 hours ago, reader said:

Now that you've twice speculated on the upside, I was hoping you could tell us something about the downside. 🙂

it will be avarded to Saudi Arabia who is also planning on bidding ?

[PeterRS]

1 hour ago, vinapu said:

it will be avarded to Saudi Arabia who is also planning on bidding ?

That's the upside, because like Qatar they want the World Cup and they will bribe whomever necessary to make it happen. After all, they are paying outrageous salaries to both stars and less well known players to move to the Kingdom to take part on the relatively new soccer Saudi League. That's what they've done with golf by starting the new LIV tour. It has been written extensively that they paid the ageing Phil Mickelson $200 million to help set the LIV tour up. So ASEAN won't get a World Cup! 

[reader]

2 hours ago, vinapu said:

it will be avarded to Saudi Arabia who is also planning on bidding ?

As PeterRS says, they're perfectly capable of buying their way into any sport. However, FIFA officials--as much as they would love to get their hands on the cash, gold bars or both--can count on significant push back from every women's sport group, not to mention the LGBT community and the media who haven't forgotten the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

A Thai bid would likely have ASEAN-wide support. And fans could be expected to be more inclined to visit a liberal nation like Thailand.

 

[PeterRS]

8 hours ago, reader said:

A Thai bid would likely have ASEAN-wide support. And fans could be expected to be more inclined to visit a liberal nation like Thailand.

I am sure ASEAN would love to see a World Cup in the region. Apart from the publicity given to the region and the influx of visitors, many quite wealthy, it could do wonders for the development of soccer - just as it did in the USA following 1994 and Japan following 2002.

As for fans, I fear their interest in the sport will far outweigh concerns about how liberal or otherwise the host country/countries might be. Just look at what happened with Qatar. When awarded the World Cup, there was an outcry. This continued in the run up to the Finals when the date was for the first time ever changed from summer to late autumn, over many allegations of corruption which have never been fully explained, over the nation's frightful treatment of all the foreign labourers brought in to build the new stadia, about alcohol being illegal and its legal stance against homosexuality. Massive amounts of media time were given over to how this would result in Qatar being boycotted by various communities and be virtually a phantom World Cup. In the end, it turned out to be a monster success. With Saudi Arabia slowly taking steps to open up to tourists and easing some restrictions on its own peoples, I cannot see that in 11 years time this will stop fans from visiting.

Much more pressing for FIFA, an organisation that used to be hugely corrupt and seems not to have changed as much as it said it would, it will face huge challenges from the main footballing and revenue-generating centres of Europe and South America. Since the mid-1950s the Finals had traditionally altered between the Americas and Europe. Since 2002, though, there have been 2 in greater Asia and one in South Africa. South America will not have hosted a FInals since 2014 in Rio (athough some matches will be played in Mexico in 2026) and Europe since 2018 in Russia. I reckon there will be great pressure for Europe to be awarded 2030 and then South America in 2034. But my crystal ball may be somewhat cloudy 😵

[vinapu]

13 hours ago, PeterRS said:

 I reckon there will be great pressure for Europe to be awarded 2030 and then South America in 2034. But my crystal ball may be somewhat cloudy 😵

Not that cloudy, you are about right. For 2030 main contenders are Spain-Portugal-Morocco or Argentina-Paraguay-Brazil- Uruguay. in spring of 2024 we will know

[PeterRS]

Australia has pulled out of the bidding for the 2034 World Cup. That leaves Saudi Arabia as the only other bidder and the almost certainty that it will be the host, given that FIFA has already stated the tournament would be held in either Asia or Oceania.

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/67271423