Southeast Asia investing

Thailand’s Grittiest Old Trading Alley Just Became an Open-Air Art Gallery — And City Hall Says This Is Only the Beginning

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Tucked behind Chiang Mai’s tourist-clogged night bazaar sits a neighborhood most visitors walk straight past: Chang Moi, a warren of aging shophouses that once thrived as the city’s river-trade hub before fading into the background of Thailand’s most photographed province. That is now changing on purpose. Chiang Mai’s city government has turned faded walls, old … Read more

Thailand’s Economy Just Got a Surprise Upgrade — But Half the Country Won’t Feel It

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Thailand’s economic forecasters just did something unusual: they raised their growth outlook in the middle of a year full of global uncertainty. The University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce (UTCC) — one of Thailand’s most closely watched university-affiliated economic think tanks, roughly equivalent to how markets in the West track forecasts from a national … Read more

The Tea Tycoon Who Wants to Sell You Fertilizer: Inside Thailand’s Unlikely Agribusiness Bet

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Thailand’s best-known bottled tea entrepreneur just placed a bet that has nothing to do with tea. Ichitan Group, the company behind the ubiquitous green-and-gold Ichitan iced tea bottles found in nearly every 7-Eleven from Chiang Mai to Phuket, is moving into fertilizer — a business as far removed from beverages as motor oil is from … Read more