Word: thais
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...flock of discount carriers is taking wing this year, bringing lower prices and tougher competition around the world. Orient Thai Airlines launched low-fare One-Two-Go in December to defend its turf from newcomers like AirAsia. Elsewhere in Asia, elite Singapore Airlines is rolling out the cheap seats on its new discount marquee, Tiger Airways, which launches later this year, partly to fend off upstart ValuAir, which has set a May debut...
Things like the aftermath of Asia's 1997 economic meltdown. Dhanin says just before the Thai baht collapsed, he almost retired. But times were so tough that Dhanin, who had spent decades building a firm that now employs 100,000 people in 20 countries, found himself confronted by a bevy of bankers. HSBC was calling in about $400 million in loans made to CP, and the company didn't have the cash. Dhanin was forced to unload assets to raise money, including stakes in a Chinese motorcycle manufacturer and a brewer--companies he believed would thrive as the mainland market...
However, just as Dhanin is building anew, he has been confronted with another potentially damaging setback: avian flu, which has devastated the Thai poultry industry over the past several months. As the No. 1 chicken producer in Asia, CP has been swept up in the crisis. Initially, rumors swirled that CP had contributed to the disease's spread in Thailand by trying to hide the outbreak. CP's participation in any cover-up "is just not true,'' says Dhanin. The company's chicken farms are a bulwark against the spread of diseases, he contends, because its birds are kept...
Moreover, Dhanin says CP began warning Thai farmers about the possibility of avian flu in November. That's when company officials showed him a newspaper photo of birds dying in central Thailand. Dhanin says he had no idea it was the deadly H5N1 virus, but he knew he had to act. Orders went out to seal up all of CP's chicken plants by further restricting access to plant premises--even delivery trucks were kept out. On Jan. 23, government officials announced that two young boys had tested positive for avian flu. The next day, CP's stock plummeted...
...rosy trade numbers might not salvage his popularity if the terror threat hits closer to home. Some analysts connect a rising wave of violence in Thailand's predominantly Muslim south with the country's troop deployment in Iraq. "There are many people down here who use the issue [of Thai soldiers in Iraq] to whip up hatred of the Americans and the Thai government that supports them," says Wairoj Pipitpakdi, an opposition legislator in the southern province of Pattani where most of the 50 casualties of recent sectarian violence lived. Last week the U.S. and Australia told their citizens...