Power rate hike plan ‘shocks’ Srettha

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Increased tariff ‘too high’ for households

PUBLISHED : 1 Dec 2023 at 05:22

Power rate hike plan 'shocks' Srettha
Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin speaks to reporters at Government House. On Thursday, the prime minister says the power tariff rate is too high. He will call a meeting with relevant agencies to discuss the rate. (Photo: Chanat Katanyu)

Prime Minister and Finance Minister Srettha Thavisin will hold a discussion with relevant agencies after news emerged that the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) is planning to raise the power tariff from 3.99 baht per unit to 4.68 baht per unit from January-April next year.

News of the possible rate increase has prompted renewed calls for the government to revamp the country’s allocation of domestic natural gas supplies to ensure access and fair prices.

“The rate is unacceptable. It’s too high. As chairman [of the ERC], I’ll call a meeting to discuss the rate. I can’t allow that,” he said.

That said, he conceded that the power rate is likely to be raised anyway, though by how much has yet to be decided. He also insisted the government will find a win-win solution, both for consumers and plant operators.

When asked if the government will review the country’s energy structure, Mr Srettha said the issue “will be discussed”.

The cabinet agreed to cut the power tariff from 4.45 baht to 4.10 baht per unit in an effort to help reduce the cost of living on Sept 13. Another meeting held on Sept 18 decided the rate would be further decreased to 3.99 baht per unit from September to December.

The reduction was proposed by Energy Minister Pirapan Salirathavibhaga following talks with the ERC.

Responding to the prime minister’s statement, Pongpol Yodmuangcharoen, spokesman for the Energy Ministry, said on Thursday the new rate of 4.68 baht per unit is only a suggestion.

The final decision has not been made as it is subject to review by Mr Pirapan, he said.

He said he was confident that the new power tariff would be lower than the proposed rate. “It’s based on an initial calculation by the ERC that is based on a sole factor, which is debt repayments to Egat,” he said.

The spokesman said Mr Pirapan had asked all agencies concerned to find ways to ensure electricity prices remain reasonable after the New Year holiday, adding ideally, the rate would be set at a little over 4 baht per unit.

Meanwhile, Isares Rattanadilok na Phuket, vice-chairman of the Federation of Thai Industries (FTI), said the government is unlikely to adopt the proposed rate and will find ways to push the costs down.

He said the private sector has made some suggestions, including the reallocation of natural gas in the Gulf of Thailand, adding that he thinks the power tariff should not exceed the current rate of 3.99 baht per unit.

It is reported that the ERC’s calculation took into consideration the impact on consumers and Egat’s long-term sustainability. The higher rate is meant to compensate for rising fuel costs, offset some losses the Egat absorbed and provide it with the necessary liquidity to service its debts.

Woraphop Wiriyaroj, a list-MP from the Move Forward Party, said electricity bills are expensive because, in Thailand, power generation relies on LNG imports while much of the domestic supply goes to petrochemical industries.

He said natural gas in the Gulf of Thailand, which is cheaper, should be reallocated for generation to help bring down electricity bills. He called on the government to act fast to bring down power bills.

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Commentary: How Qatar became mediator in the Gaza war

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ALL-ROUND INTEGRATION

First, it has no history as a colonial power, so it comes with none of the baggage that inevitably accompanies peacemaking efforts by, say, Britain, France or the US. And, as a small Gulf state that doesn’t publicly align itself intimately with Washington, Moscow or Beijing, its mediation efforts are less likely to draw “great power” suspicion or criticism.

But – perhaps more importantly – Qatar’s position as regional mediator is a byproduct of its wealth management, investment capacity and its extensive and complex business connections, including personal connections in the Middle East, North Africa and particularly to the US.

The US is Qatar’s largest foreign direct investor. US exports to Qatar increased by more than 42 per cent between 2021 and 2022, totalling US$3.7 billion in 2019.

Neoliberal globalisation advocated for open markets, global distribution of production and deregulated financial markets. Qatar has wholeheartedly embraced this in its transition to a multi-faceted economy, no longer wholly dependent on revenue from hydrocarbon production.

It has been a success story. In per capita income, Qatar is now one of the top ten richest countries in the world and the wealthiest in the Arab world, with a per capita gross domestic product of US$88,046 compared to the US at US$75,269 and the United Kingdom at US$45,485.

Significantly, given the conflict in Ukraine which has highlighted the need for European countries to diversify their energy supplies, Qatar is the second largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the world, with some 85 per cent of its export earnings coming from hydrocarbons. Investing the resulting trade surplus in America government debt has led to mutual interdependency between its economy and that of the US.

The more the Qatari economy is intertwined with global supply chains, the more alert its diplomacy has become in providing solutions to thorny – especially regional – conflicts.

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PBOC’s Pan telling hard, uncomfortable truths

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At a moment of peak uncertainty about the direction of China’s economy, People’s Bank of China (PBOC) Governor Pan Gongsheng is surprising many by speaking in unusually direct terms.

Some of the ambiguity of the “Xi Jinping thought” era is a government big on soaring reform rhetoric and fuzzy on nuts-and-bolts specifics. It’s here where Pan’s burst of economic realpolitik is both refreshing and telling.

The bottom-line message: kindly give China some space and tolerance to pull off modern history’s greatest effort to transition away from property and infrastructure to new drivers of economic growth. Oh, and that period of 8-10% annual growth? It’s not coming back.

“The traditional model of relying heavily on infrastructure and real estate might generate higher growth, but it would also delay structural adjustment and undermine growth sustainability,” Pan told bankers in Hong Kong on Tuesday (November 28).

He added that “the ongoing economic transformation will be a long and difficult journey. But it’s a journey we must take.”

Pan went on to say that “China’s real estate sector is searching for a new equilibrium” to achieve “healthy and sustainable growth” of the “high-quality” variety.

Nor did Pan shy from discussing the biggest potential cracks in China’s financial system. He admitted, for example, that financially fragile regions in the west and north of the country may have “difficulties servicing local government debts.” Expect more defaults, in other words.

Such off-script admissions of turbulence to come are relatively rare in official Communist Party circles. Normally, the top-down impulse in the Xi era has been to project an image of economic omniscience and omnipotence. As such, Pan’s foray into straight talk is useful, intriguing and timely.

On Thursday, China’s National Bureau of Statistics released fresh signs that the manufacturing and services sectors shrank in November, fanning expectations for increased state support as the economy faces intensifying headwinds.

The manufacturing purchasing managers index dropped to 49.4 while non-manufacturing activity slid to weaker than expected 50.2.

Manufacturing data is down in a slowing Chinese economy. Photo: Asia Times Files / Imaginechina via AFP / Liang Xiaopeng

Granted, central bankers as a profession tend to speak in vague and non-committal ways. Obfuscation, in other words, is a monetary policymaker’s tool — their modus operandi — to keep all options open at all times.

A top practitioner of the discipline was Alan Greenspan, who chaired the US Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006. As he once joked to a business forum: “If I’ve made myself too clear, you must have misunderstood me.”

Yet Pan is hardly playing rhetorical games as he telegraphs a long, bumpy road ahead. Naturally, this had PBOC watchers wondering if a new, more activist monetary strategy might be in store in Beijing.

Including, perhaps, a pivot toward quantitative easing (QE) with Chinese characteristics. Though the PBOC hasn’t officially gone the QE route, the central bank spent the last few months — Pan took the helm in July — expanding its balance sheet with aggressive lending to banks.

The PBOC’s total assets jumped 8.6% year on year in October to 43.3 trillion yuan (US$6.1 trillion), the biggest increase since at least 2014. Again, neither Pan nor his staff are talking explicitly about QE. And notable PBOC leaders of the past threw cold water on the prospects for Chinese QE.

In 2010, Zhou Xiaochuan, governor from 2002 to 2018, cautioned that QE policies, particularly in the US, were causing havoc globally.

In September 2021, Pan’s immediate predecessor, Yi Gang, warned that runaway, Japan-like asset purchases “would damage market functions, monetize fiscal deficits, harm central banks’ reputation, blur the boundary of monetary policy and create moral hazard.”

At the time, Yi said that “China will extend the time for implementing normal monetary policy as much as possible and there is no need for asset purchases.”

Yet the need for big asset purchases has gone full circle as China’s post-Covid rebound disappoints. China’s worsening property crisis is pushing the PBOC toward more assertive strategies to boost liquidity.

Some of this has been to absorb a boom in government bond issuance to add fiscal jolts to an ailing economy and to support green sector pursuits.

In a report earlier this week, the PBOC said it’s working to “unblock the monetary policy transmission mechanism, enhance the stability of financial support for the real economy, promote a virtuous economic and financial cycle, and keep prices reasonably stable.”

This has the PBOC mulling a strategy of providing upwards of 1 trillion yuan ($141 billion) in cheap financing for construction projects. Under Beijing’s Pledged Supplementary Lending (PSL) program, the PBOC will channel low-cost long-term liquidity to policy banks to boost lending to the infrastructure and housing sectors.

This plan is at least nominally QE-adjacent. Though more targeted than the QE employed by the Bank of Japan, which pioneered the technique in 2000 and 2001, and the Fed, the PBOC’s plan would make large-scale bond purchases behind the scenes aimed at depressing yields.

Economists can’t help but connect the dots and label this expansion of the PBOC’s balance sheet as “Chinese-style” QE.

Analysts are looking for signs of quantitative easing with Chinese characteristics. Photo: Facebook

“Beijing might have finally recognized the need to introduce quantitative easing or money printing for the collapsing property sector,” notes Nomura economist Ting Lu. “We believe Beijing will eventually need to reach into its own pockets, with printed money from the PBOC – such as PSL – to fill up the vast funding gap and secure the delivery of pre-sold homes.”

Economists at Goldman Sachs said in a recent note to clients “we think additional broad-based monetary policy easing is still needed to facilitate the large amount of government bond issuance and improve sentiment towards growth.”

It’s a controversial step, one that divides economists.

In an August note to clients, Robert Carnell, economist at ING Bank, warned that “QE would put the Chinese yuan under further weakening pressure, which it is very clear the PBOC does not want and would make it much harder for them to manage the yuan. It would also raise the risks of capital outflows, which they will also be keen to avoid.”

Count Carnell among economists who think the answer to China’s troubles lies with Xi’s reform team, not earlier PBOC policies. “As for government stimulus policies, these, we think, will tend to be along the lines of the many supply-side enhancing measures that we have already seen.”

Carnell adds that “the way through a debt overhang is not to print more debt, though it may be to swap it out for lower-rate central government debt, or longer maturity debt to ease debt service.

“Enhancing the efficiency of the private sector will also play a key role, though this and all the supply-side measures will take a considerable time to play out. The tiresome chorus clamoring for more stimulus is unlikely to stop in the meantime.”

This week, Xi made a rare visit to Shanghai just as his team unveiled a 25-point plan to reinvigorate private sector innovation and productivity.

Others argue that the end justifies the means. “Some traditionalists would argue that central banks should not engage in asset allocation, except through the interest-rate channel,” said Andrew Sheng at the University of Hong Kong.

“But QE has already proven to be a powerful resource-allocation tool capable of transforming national balance sheets. An innovative, well-planned QE program … could support China’s efforts to tackle some of the biggest challenges it faces,” he adds.

Like central banks in high-income countries after the 2008 financial crisis, “the PBOC could still avail itself of quantitative easing, with large-scale purchases of government bonds giving commercial banks more liquidity for lending,” notes Shang-Jin Wei, a former Asian Development Bank (ADB) economist.

Wei adds that “if the goal is to achieve higher inflation – as is the case in China today – there is no mechanical limit on the additional stimulus that can be applied to the economy through this channel.”

Wei channels Mario Draghi when he argues “China needs the ‘whatever it takes’ approach that the European Central Bank pursued a decade ago when it, too, was facing a debt-deflation spiral. The PBOC should publicly declare a strategy to monetize a big portion of government debt and to incentivize more private equity investment.”

Pan hasn’t done that, of course. And it’s debatable that he will. But as China grapples with an unprecedented property crisis, it will fall to the PBOC to grease the skids via liquidity as local governments dispose of bad debts.

The enterprise will echo the role the BOJ played in the early 2000s to facilitate the discarding of toxic loans undermining what was then Asia’s biggest economy.

Resolving local government debt troubles, made worse by an explosion of local government financing vehicles (LGFVs), is vital to stabilizing China’s $61 trillion financial sector while China Inc is already grappling with cratering real estate markets.

The idea, argues state-run Xinhua News, is to “optimize the debt structure of central and local governments” to improve the quality of national growth.

PBOC Governor Pan has markets dissecting his every move on rates. Image: BBC Screengrab

As China embarks on what Pan calls a “long and difficult journey” of disruption, the PBOC is on the frontlines. “Looking ahead,” Pan said, “China’s economy will remain resilient. I’m confident China will enjoy healthy and sustainable growth in 2024 and beyond.”

Yet as Pan just explained with unusual frankness, “China is experiencing a transition in its economic model” driven by a belief that “high-quality, sustainable growth is far more important” than rapid expansion.

Doing whatever it takes to get there may have China pivoting in ways most never expected – and in ways almost certain to unnerve global markets.

Follow William Pesek on X, formerly Twitter, at @WilliamPesek

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Hamas hostages: Thai workers set to return to overjoyed families

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Thai hostages freed by Hamas in Israel-Gaza warMinistry of Foreign Affairs
By BBC Thai, Thanyarat Doksone & Kelly Ng
in Bangkok and Singapore

Seventeen freed Thai hostages are set to return home after being held in captivity by Hamas for nearly 50 days.

Their release is separate to an agreement that has so far seen Hamas free 70 Israeli women and children.

The extension of the truce has now renewed hope for the release of the remaining nine Thai hostages.

Nearly all of the abducted foreign workers were Thais. Israel employs some 30,000 of them as farm labour, making it one of the largest migrant groups.

Thirty-nine Thai nationals were among the 1,200 people Hamas killed in its attack on Israel on 7 October.

Six Thai hostages who were released in the last two days are still in Israel for a medical examination. But the other who were freed are being accompanied home by Thai foreign minister Parnpree Bahiddha-Nukara. They are scheduled to arrive early Thursday evening in Bangkok, where some of their families are eagerly awaiting their return.

Chanapa and Sirirat Bupasiri left their village in the middle of the night so they could reach Bangkok in time for their brother Buddee Saengbun’s arrival.

“We haven’t had any sleep,” Chanapa told the BBC, while she waited outside the Bangkok international airport. She said they realised Buddee was safe when they saw him on the news after he was released in the past week.

“We had no idea what had happened to my brother. We tried everything – Facebook groups, the department of employment, some families had heard about their loved ones but not us.”

She smiled tearfully when asked what she would do when she finally met her brother again. “Hugs. Hugs and tears,” she said. “One month and 18 days. We’ve been counting each day.”

L-R: Sirirat and Chanapa Bupasiri with Palita Saengbun, the daughter of another freed hostage

The workers will travel home after a brief press conference, where they will answer questions from the media. Most of them are from north-east Thailand, a poor, rice-growing region which sees much of its working-age population leave in search of better opportunities.

Elderly parents who can’t make the journey to Bangkok, or families that cannot afford the long trip, are waiting back home.

“I’m overjoyed. I can’t wait for her to come home,” says Bunyarin Srichan, whose daughter Nattawaree “Yo” Mulka was the only female Thai hostage taken by Hamas.

She says they will celebrate with an indulgent meal – fried pork with garlic and “the best sticky rice we’ve got.” She also plans to hold a small homecoming ceremony, widely believed by Thais as a way to bring back the soul that was spooked during a traumatic experience.

Yo’s boyfriend, whom she met while working in Israel, was also abducted, and was freed with her.

Bunyarin, who has been caring for Yo’s two children, said her daughter called or messaged thrice a day before she was kidnapped in the October 7 attack. And she sent her mother half her salary every month – 25,000 Thai baht or £550.

Many of the workers borrow money to go to Israel and send home savings to support their families and pay off debt. Natthaporn Onkaew, 27, who was released on Saturday, is his family’s sole breadwinner.

He started working in Israel two years ago, and sent home about $800-$1,000 (£630-£800) every month.

“I’m very happy that my son is coming back,” his father, Thawatchai Onkaew, told BBC Thai, adding that his son had been calling home every day from the hospital since he was freed.

The family is preparing his favourite dish – raw beef salad – to welcome him home, and are also throwing him a party.

Mr Thawatchai said his son does not plan go back to Israel for work because he is “still very scared”.

Narissara

Around 8,500 Thai nationals have been repatriated since the 7 October attack. But the BBC understands that some have since gone back to Israel, likely driven by debt and joblessness back home.

Many have also previously told BBC Thai about their harrowing work conditions in Israel, such as unsanitary living quarters while being overworked and underpaid.

More than 14,500 people have been killed in Gaza in Israel’s retaliatory bombing since 7 October, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.

But a negotiated pause in fighting, which has now lasted six days, has seen Hamas release 102 of the 240 hostages in exchange for 180 Palestinian prisoners, many of them woman and teens, held in Israeli jails.

The truce was scheduled to end on Thursday, but has now been extended by at least one day.

That has given Narissara Chanthasang fresh hope – her husband, Nattapong Pinta, is still a Hamas hostage.

“I felt like my heart was being squeezed when I learned that he hadn’t been freed yet,” she said. “I will definitely go to the airport [when he returns]. Nothing will stop me.”

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China paying substantial climate finance while US lags

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Finance is poisoning international cooperation on the climate crisis.

There is no longer any credible debate about the need to act on climate change, but tensions are flaring around the question of who should make the immense investments necessary to phase out fossil fuels and adapt to a more hostile climate.

The rift between richer and poorer countries has consequently revived and the negotiations have once more descended into acrimony. How can the finance fight be resolved?

Back in 2009, developed countries at the Copenhagen summit committed to provide developing countries with US$100 billion of climate finance a year from 2020.

$100 billion a year is just a fraction of the $1.8 trillion that low- and middle-income countries need each year to reduce emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change.

But it is symbolic: it represents redress for the outsized share of the global carbon budget that developed countries have gobbled up, leaving the rest of the world both battered by climate disasters and constrained in terms of the carbon that they can emit as they pursue a better quality of life.

Despite the political importance of the $100 billion pledge, developed countries did not deliver it in 2020 or 2021. They may meet the goal in 2022, but the self-reported data has not yet been verified.

The broken promise of climate finance has stoked resentment in developing countries, compounded by vaccine hoarding and debt hangovers.

Many of these countries insist that the $100 billion a year must be met before other aspects of the climate negotiations can continue in good faith.

Yet many developed countries look askance at these demands from some of the increasingly wealthy and polluting economies – like the Gulf states or China – that sit within the developing country bloc. This bloc has no obligation to provide climate finance under the international regime.

Posturing by both sides overlooks the huge amount of climate finance that many developing countries already contribute.

Unsung climate heroes?

Most countries pay into multilateral development banks, which are set up by governments to help poorer countries access cheaper finance and advisory services.

While fighting climate change is rarely a country’s primary motivation for investing in these banks, their contributions nonetheless help developing countries mitigate and adapt to climate change.

For example, the banks might provide a low-cost loan to countries looking to enhance their wastewater systems to cope with more rainfall, or to build a public transport network that avoids emissions from private cars.

A worker installs polycrystalline silicon solar panels as terrestrial photovoltaic power in Yantai, China. Photo: Asia Times Files / Getty

Developing countries do not seek or receive credit for this climate finance, as they are not obliged to report their contributions to the UN climate convention. In a first of its kind analysis, the global affairs think tank ODI has revealed that developing countries already provide large amounts of climate finance through these banks.

China is the 11th largest provider of all countries, contributing $1.2 billion a year. India (17th), Brazil (19th) and Russia (20th) are also notable donors.

Even these figures understate developing country contributions, as they do not include climate finance channeled bilaterally between countries, rather than through multilateral development banks or UN agencies, and are only available for a handful of developing countries, including China.

Drawing on these databases, we calculated that China provides an estimated $1.4 billion of public finance bilaterally. If we combine this figure with the $1.2 billion of climate finance that it channels through multilateral development banks, China is the seventh largest provider of climate finance between Italy (sixth) and Canada (eighth).

These figures make a mockery of US and EU demands that China begin contributing to climate finance – particularly given the track record of the US to date.

Unfair share

Our annual “fair share” report attributes responsibility for the $100 billion target among developed countries based on their historical emissions (which continue to fuel global warming), income and population size.

Based on these metrics, we found that the US is overwhelmingly responsible for the climate finance shortfall. The world’s largest economy should be providing $43.5 billion of climate finance a year. In 2021, it gave just $9.3 billion – a meager 21% of its fair share.

For context, the US accounts for around a fifth of historical emissions but just 4% of the global population. Its economy is four times larger than Japan’s, five times larger than Germany’s and eight times larger than that of France, yet it provides less climate finance than any of them.

Although China has 17% of the global population, it is responsible for just 11% of cumulative emissions. China is also much poorer per person than the US – or indeed, any of the developed countries expected to provide climate finance. Nonetheless, China gives $2.6 billion of climate finance a year.

If not China, who?

Countries are assembling in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for the next round of climate negotiations. The new climate finance goal, which will replace the current target of $100 billion a year, and the new loss and damage fund, will both be under the spotlight.

We propose two criteria to determine when countries should be obliged to provide climate finance: that they are at least as rich per person as the average developed country at the start of the 1990s, when international climate negotiations began, and that they have produced as many historical emissions per person.

Six countries meet our criteria: Brunei Darussalam, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE. The Czech Republic, Estonia and Qatar already voluntarily provide additional climate finance on top of their contributions to multilateral development banks. Brunei Darussalam, Kuwait and the UAE – which is presiding over this round of climate negotiations – do not.

Closing the climate finance gap

So, how can the deadlock be broken?

The fastest way to restore trust in the international climate regime would be for the US to step up with its fair share of climate finance. Without it, the Europeans are on track to close the gap by meeting and exceeding their fair share of the $100 billion.

Only once the developed countries have fulfilled their longstanding promise does a conversation about new climate finance contributors become politically possible.

The world has just endured the hottest 12 months on record. Let us hope that these extreme temperatures light a fire under diplomats and negotiators, igniting a joint commitment to finding the finance to avert climate catastrophe.

Sarah Colenbrander is Director, Climate and Sustainability Program, Overseas Development Institute & Guest Lecturer, Climate Change Economics, University of Oxford

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Worker skills, education ‘key to cutting inequality’

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PUBLISHED : 30 Nov 2023 at 04:00

Thailand can reduce income inequality by boosting workers’ skills and improving education, according to the National Economic and Social Development Council (NESDC).

Danucha Pichayanan, secretary-general of the NESDC, yesterday said poverty and inequality are key factors holding up the economic and social development of the country.

He said the NESDC has revised its indicators and approach to analysis to find a way to help drive policy forward, such as improving the poverty graph every 10 years and making use of tax data to analyse inequality, so the government has accurate information as it goes about tackling these problems.

The number of poor people has fallen rapidly over the past three decades but there is still a group of people who have lived below the poverty line for generations.

Thailand has made progress towards reducing significant levels of inequality, yet inequality nonetheless remains high, which indicates national structural problems that require urgent action, particularly the need to create more jobs and increase incomes for the people, Mr Danucha said.

Fabrizio Zarcone, World Bank country manager in Thailand, said its report titled “Bridging the Gap: Inequality and Jobs in Thailand” showed that several structural factors contribute to the persistence of inequality.

“Inequality begins very early in life, with unequal opportunities in human development, and perpetuates over the lifecycle and across generations,” he said.

Differences in educational opportunities and skills, low farming-incomes, an ageing population, and increasing household debt pose challenges to lowering inequality in Thailand.

Although Covid-19’s effect on poverty and inequality was relatively mild, the pandemic may have exacerbated the gap in learning outcomes and household debt challenges.

Thailand’s rising cost of living and shrinking working-age population are additional factors complicating efforts to reduce inequality, he said.

Policies are needed in the short term to address learning losses and the rising prices of necessities, which could both widen human capital gaps.

The government should have a policy to provide vulnerable groups with enough support as challenges from rising inflation and climate events mount, he added.

Worawan Plikhamin, deputy NESDC secretary-general, said poverty in Thailand has improved as the number of poor people dropped from 4.4 million to 3.87 million people last year.

Most people who are poor are likely to reside in the northeastern provinces. Many are farmers, who have fluctuating incomes, she said.

Figures also show that university education is accessible to 74% of the rich, while for the poor, it is only 9%.

The level of university enrolment remains low among poor families, showing that some students drop out of the system, she said.

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Why Hamas releases Thai hostages before others

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BANGKOK – Buddhist-majority Thailand gained the release of at least 19 Thai hostages from Hamas, the most foreigners freed as of Wednesday, after Bangkok boldly began direct negotiations with the Palestinian militant group’s representatives in Iran nearly two months ago.

How did Thailand succeed while many of the other foreign hostages have still not been freed? Thailand’s quiet, bold, and direct diplomacy appeared to be a big key to their success.

This Southeast Asian nation did have the most foreigners employed near the Israel-Gaza border so the numbers were in their favor when Hamas decided to include foreign hostages in the releases.

Initial reports said 15 Argentinians were seized alongside 12 Americans, a dozen Germans, six French, and six Russians, plus about 35 other foreign nationals. The Thais were mostly impoverished agricultural and factory laborers contracted to the vulnerable desert zones.

Bangkok, meanwhile, also networked with the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Qatar and others for their freedom.

The October 7 assault on Israel by Hamas killed more than 1,400 Israelis and foreigners including at least 39 Thais, mostly agricultural laborers contracted to desert zones along the Israel-Gaza border.

Additionally, Hamas seized at least 240 hostages – mostly Israelis – and imprisoned them in Gaza at gunpoint including at least 32 Thais.

In small batches, Hamas has released a total of 60 Israelis, 19 Thais and only a handful of other countries’ hostages. As of Wednesday, Hamas and other Palestinian militants still held about 160 hostages, including at least 13 Thais.

Media image of a Thai hostage held by Hamas in Gaza. Image: Twitter

“The timely initiative of the speaker of the Thai House of Representatives, Wan Muhamad Noor Matha, to send a delegation of Sunni and Shia leaders to Tehran and negotiate with Iran and Hamas directly, contributed substantially to this success,” a former Thai foreign minister, Kantathi Suphamongkhon, said in an interview.

“The direct channel of communication with Hamas in Iran was useful,” Kantathi said.

The three-man Thai delegation flew to Iran on October 27. The delegates were led by House Speaker Wan’s Sunni Muslim representative. About 99% of Thailand’s seven million Muslims are Sunni. One percent are Shia.

The delegation included Lerpong Syed representing his brother Saiyid Sulaiman Husaini who leads Thailand’s Shia community.

Areepen Uttarsin, a former member of parliament from southern Thailand’s Muslim-majority Narathiwat province, was also a delegate.

The three delegates landed in Tehran and were invited to “the headquarters of the Hamas envoy in Tehran, Iran,” Saiyid Husaini’s Facebook page said.

Meanwhile, “[Thai] Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin sent Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Parnpree Bahiddha-Nukara to the UAE and Egypt,” Kantathi said.

“Parnpree also met with the Iranians while in the UAE. An emphasis was made that Thailand was not an enemy to any party. Thailand was not a part of the conflict.

“Thailand has good relations with the United States, Israel, Iran, as well as the Palestinians,” Kantathi said.

Paul Chambers, a Naresuan University lecturer in Southeast Asian affairs, agreed.

“Officially, Thailand has tried to stay neutral between Israel on one side, and Iran/Hamas on the other,” Chambers said in an interview. “The efforts of this [Thai Muslim delegation] team were mostly responsible for the Thai hostages’ release.”

Despite the polarizing international politics on all sides of the Palestinian conflict, “Bangkok will likely continue to try to balance its relations between Israel and Muslim countries of the Middle East,” Chambers said.

Prime Minister Srettha said on October 29, “Thailand is a neutral country and not part of the conflict. We only want our people to be safe, and the hostages released as soon as possible.”

Earlier, shortly after the Hamas assault, Thailand’s foreign ministry said: “Thailand calls upon all parties involved to refrain from any actions that would further escalate tensions, and joins the international community in condemning any use of violence and indiscriminate attacks.”

“I’m so happy, I’m so glad, I can’t describe my feeling at all,” Thongkoon Onkaew told Reuters on Sunday (November 26) after seeing her son among the four latest Thai hostages released by Hamas on Saturday (November 25), along with 13 more Israelis and one Filipino.

“That’s my son! My son!” Thongkoon said when she saw Natthaporn Onkaew smiling along with several others in a van, in a photo displayed by Hamas.

Thai House Speaker Wan Muhamad Noor Matha, a Sunni Muslim, has been instrumental in the Thai hostages’ release. Image: Twitter Screengrab

“All they wanted was to take a shower and call their relatives,” Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin said on X, formerly Twitter.

“They were admitted to [Israel’s] Shamir Medical Center Hospital. Thanks must go to the foreign ministry and our security agencies,” Srettha said.

Many of the Thais working on farms and in factories in Israel were in debt to Thai money lenders to pay various fees to arrange their contracts and other expenses.

The Thai government said it would help finance their return and alleviate their debts.

Richard S Ehrlich is a Bangkok-based American foreign correspondent reporting from Asia since 1978. Excerpts from his two new nonfiction books, “Rituals. Killers. Wars. & Sex. — Tibet, India, Nepal, Laos, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka & New York” and “Apocalyptic Tribes, Smugglers & Freaks” are available here.

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PM calls time on illegal loan sharks

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Likens problem to modern-day slavery

PUBLISHED : 29 Nov 2023 at 04:00

Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin has declared tackling loan sharks and the problems they cause a national priority, and likened the situation some of their victims find themselves in to a form of modern-day slavery.

The prime minister emphasised the pervasiveness of high-interest informal debt that plagues Thai society, and pledged, in collaboration with administrative organisations and the police, to enforce laws on acceptable debt resolution.

The insidious impact that loan sharks have, not only on communities but the macroeconomic well-being of the country, is deeply entrenched in Thai society, with current outstanding loans estimated to be in the region of 50 billion baht.

“Personally, I think informal debt is modern world slavery, which deprives people of freedom,” said Mr Srettha.

Recognising that the public forms the bedrock of the nation, the prime minister underscored the need to break these cycles of perpetual debt woes, which ripple through every facet of the country.

The government wants to dismantle the informal loan system. Ensuring equitable treatment for both creditors and debtors within legal frameworks is a priority, he said.

The Royal Thai Police will work with the Interior Ministry to implement a centralised database and ID tracking system for the public.

“I urge the two agencies to work together under the same key performance indicator [KPI] and clear framework in an effort to achieve their goal,” said Mr Srettha.

After a process of reconciliation with creditors, the government plans to initiate debt restructuring. The Finance Ministry will provide financial advisers, tailoring specific terms and conditions to facilitate debt repayment for individuals.

“I am confident that the economy will improve and people will earn enough that they need not get involved with the informal loan system again,” said Mr Srettha.

The government also intends to streamline access to capital, said the prime minister, who plans to address universal debt issues on Dec 12.

Regarding post-reconciliation interest rates, Mr Srettha emphasised a cap of 15% per annum on what debtors will be legally required to pay. Moreover, excess payments by debtors could potentially lead to debt cancellation after adjusting interest rates.

Highlighting the government’s holistic approach, Mr Srettha said comprehensive plans to negotiate with both creditors and debtors would not only resolve the issue of loan sharks but also formal lending concerns.

Meanwhile, Interior Minister Anutin Charnvirakul urged victims of unfair treatment by loan sharks to seek assistance at designated centres across provinces and district offices in Bangkok. Since Oct 1, law enforcement efforts have resulted in 134 arrests related to loan sharks and the confiscation of assets worth 8 million baht, said deputy police chief Pol Gen Thana Chuwong.

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Xi’s big push to reverse China’s massive capital flight

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Xi Jinping’s first public visit to Shanghai in three years signals a new effort to boost China’s private sector. Yet even more important, Xi’s team in Beijing chose this week’s occasion to unveil a series of reforms that are a bigger deal than might meet the eye.

The stocks of Shanghai-centered tech companies like Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp, Hua Hong Semiconductor Ltd. and Will Semiconductor Co. rallied on the news Monday.

The visit, coupled with new policies to level playing fields and increase private companies’ access to capital, is seen by some as Xi following through on vows made in California earlier this month to make life easier for China’s beleaguered entrepreneurs.

To date, Xi’s attempts to restore investor confidence amid struggles to move past Covid-19 fallout have fallen short. More than US$1 trillion of foreign capital fled mainland share markets since Xi clamped down on Big Tech in late 2020. More recent fears about deflation haven’t helped.

In recent weeks, Xi restarted China’s stimulus machine amid calls for greater government action amid a property crisis and stalling economic recovery. In particular, the People’s Bank of China, China’s central bank, has channeled more liquidity to troubled property developers.

Analyst Zerlina Zeng at CreditSights speaks for many when she says “we expect China’s softening external stance and warming relationship with the US and other developed markets to set a more conducive geopolitical backdrop for China credit.”

But the reforms being outlined this week could be a game-changer. The PBOC and seven other government bodies have unveiled 25 steps to increase the role of the private sector.

They will apply to a broad range of private sector industries, including the ailing property market. Gavekal Research analyst Xiaoxi Zhang isn’t exaggerating when she warns that “debt strains from property developers and local government financing vehicles are spreading across China’s economy.”

There are concerns, too, that Beijing’s criminal probe into the wealth management unit of Zhongzhi Enterprise Group, one of China’s largest “shadow banks,” could soon spook Asian markets the same way China Evergrande Group’s default did in 2021.

The Zhongzhi Group shadow bank is on the verge of collapse. Image: Twitter

Broader initiatives include setting clear and transparent targets for widening access to financial services for private enterprises.

With an emphasis on regular performance assessments and financial support, the plan is to increase the proportion of loans to private enterprises while improving organizational structures to increase efficiency.

Areas of particular focus include: supporting technological innovation amongst small and medium-sized enterprises, entrepreneurs in the green and low-carbon space and innovators keen to disrupt China from the ground up.

This will include a greater tolerance for risk-taking and the non-performing loans that startups can rack up. Beijing seeks to recalibrate lending and borrowing practices to increase private sector development while limiting risks.

This also includes increased support for first-time loans and unsecured loans. Financial institutions will be encouraged to develop a wider range of credit-financing products suitable for private enterprises.

Most important of all, Xi’s reform team is eying a great leap forward for China’s corporate bond market. This has long been a stumbling block for smaller, less established corporate credits. In particular, China plans to expand the range of bond financing options — and the scale — to private enterprises.

Under a series of “innovation bills” under the National Association of Financial Market Institutional Investors and China Securities Regulatory Commission, new structures will be welcomed for stock-bond hybrid products, green bonds, carbon neutrality bonds, transition bonds, infrastructure bonds and other financing tools.

Support programs will seek to incentivize private enterprises to issue asset-backed securities to restructure and revitalize existing assets. Registration mechanisms will be streamlined.

And Beijing will prod state-owned entities like China Bond Insurance Co and China Securities Finance Corporation, and even non-government institutions, to adhere to global standards and raise their credit market games.

That means building world-class systems for credit guarantees, credit risk mitigation tools, credit analysis and ratings and expanding China’s universe of bond financing support tools for private enterprises.

At long last, the Communist Party finally seems serious about facilitating increased bond investment in private enterprises. In years past, Beijing worried about a “crowding out” effect if private issuers lured capital from the national and local governments.

China’s bond markets haven’t kept pace with the economy’s needs. Image: Twitter

Now, Beijing will encourage banks, insurance companies, pension funds, public funds, and other institutional investors to allocate capital to private enterprises. Regulators will be charged with internationalizing trading mechanisms, market pricing, compliance and disclosure procedures.

Xi’s team also is stepping up efforts to develop a high-yield bond market. Few steps might be more impactful for private sector development – especially tech-oriented SMEs – than creating a dedicated high-yield debt platform empowered by world-class trading systems. It would supersize capital-raising options and pull in new generations of overseas investors.

In June, local media reported that the PBOC and CSRC sought advice from market participants on setting up a high-yield marketplace. As of then, only four high-yield debt issues with coupons exceeding 8% had priced in 2023.

Authorities sought input from fixed-income players, investment bankers, legal experts, rating companies and accountants. This would channel greater financing to tech enterprises, startups and riskier borrowers.

The key, though, is implementation. The disconnect between Xi’s rhetoric since 2012 and execution helps explain why investors tend to be skeptical of China’s past efforts to reboot the reform process.

“Time will tell whether President Xi’s words will first stem the current large foreign direct investment outflows and eventually lead to a resumption of the net FDI inflows that China has enjoyed for more than four decades,” says Nicholas Lardy, senior researcher at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “A safe assumption is that it will take more than words to accomplish this objective.”

It helps that the news dropped days after Xi’s government drafted a list of property developers eligible for large-scale support, including the troubled Country Garden Holdings. The property crisis remains a major turnoff for overseas investors.

New data, Lardy notes, “imply that foreign firms operating in China are not only declining to reinvest their earnings but – for the first time ever – they are large net sellers of their existing investments to Chinese companies and repatriating the funds.”

The outflows in question exceeded $100 billion in the first three quarters of 2023 and, as Lardy predicts, “are likely to grow further based on trends to date.”

Among the factors Lardy cites as repelling overseas investors and chieftains: tense Sino-US tensions; recent news of Beijing cracking down on foreign consultancy and due-diligence firms vital to evaluating investments; Beijing’s increasingly stringent regulatory environment; new national security laws; and restrictions on cross-border data flows.

Michael Hart, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, notes that “foreign business executives here are eager to continue in China. But boards back in the US are wary.”

Hence the importance of Xi and Li ensuring that these new private enterprise policies are implemented in credible and transparent ways. The good news is that Li, party secretary for Shanghai City from 2017 to 2022, has close ties with, and deep understanding of, China’s tech sector.

Li Qiang understands the tech sector. Image: Screengrab / NDTV

Veteran banker Zhu Hexin seems a solid choice as new party chief of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE). He will assume management of China’s foreign exchange stockpile from PBOC Governor Pan Gongsheng. Zhu also was appointed as a member of the central bank’s party committee.

Prior to SAFE, Zhu helmed state-run financial conglomerate CITIC Group, meaning he comes to the job with deep market knowledge and industry contacts. Also, Vice Premier He Lifeng has been tapped to oversee economic and financial policy and trade talks with the US and Europe as head of the Central Financial Commission.

It now falls to Li, Zhu and He to ensure that President Xi’s recent pledges to top Western chieftains in San Francisco don’t fall by the wayside.

CEOs on hand to hear Xi speak included Apple’s Tim Cook, Bridgewater Associates’ Ray Dalio, Citadel Securities’ Peng Zhao, ExxonMobil’s Darren Woods, JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla and Tesla’s Elon Musk.

There, Xi claimed that “China doesn’t seek spheres of influence, and will not fight a cold war or a hot war with anyone.” Xi also seemed to preview the next phase of reform, stating that “we should remain committed to open regionalism, and steadfastly advance the building of a free trade area of the Asia-Pacific. We should make our economies more interconnected and build an open Asia-Pacific economy featuring win-win cooperation.”

Xi added that “we should promote transitions to digital, smart and green development. We should boost innovation and market application of scientific and technological advances and push forward the full integration of digital and physical economies. We should jointly improve global governance of science and technology, and build an open, fair, just and non-discriminatory environment for the development of science and technology.”

Earlier this month, Xi presided over a private sector symposium in Beijing to highlight its central role in a more innovative and productive Chinese future. There, Xi stressed that private enterprises contribute more than 60% of gross domestic product, 50% of tax revenue, 80% of urban employment, 90% of new jobs and 70% of tech innovation.

“Over the past 40 years, the private sector of the economy has become an indispensable force behind China’s development,” Xi acknowledged.

Yet private enterprise has had a rough few years, from Covid-19 to Xi’s tech crackdown. A major concern now is that China falls into a Japan-like lost decade, so-called “Japanification.”

Economist Takatoshi Ito, a former Japanese deputy vice minister of finance, notes that the Chinese property sector’s “travails echo Japan’s experience” with bad loans and deflation.

But, Ito adds, “perhaps the greatest threat to China’s economic growth and development is Xi himself. Xi has spent the last few years tightening government control over all aspects of life in the country, including the economy. The regulatory crackdown on large tech companies like Alibaba, which began in late 2020, is a case in point.”

Alibaba took the brunt of Xi’s tech clampdown. Image: Agencies

Though regulators “have since backed off somewhat, and China’s government is actively supporting high-tech industries like electric vehicles, Xi’s obsession with control continues to pose a serious threat to China’s prospects. Not only does it hamper innovation by domestic firms; it also discourages foreign investment.”

The good news is that the private sector reforms detailed in recent days suggest Xi is serious about bold economic disruption and recalibrating growth engines away from state-owned enterprises and public investment toward private sector innovation.

As long as implementation is swift and credible, 2024 could be a markedly better year for China than many investors now pulling their investments from Asia’s largest economy expect.

Follow William Pesek on X, formerly Twitter, at @WilliamPesek

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From bidding for Bale to selling the team bus – the fall of the CSL

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Hulk smiles as he walks through a crowded airport, carrying a bouquet of flowers while wearing a Shanghai SIPG scarf

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In June 2016, hundreds of fans gathered at Shanghai airport to watch one of the most famous footballers in the world make the city his home.

Hulk, a 29-year-old Brazil international at the peak of his powers, had been signed by Shanghai SIPG manager Sven-Goran Eriksson for more than £46m and would earn reported wages of £320,000 a week.

As he strode through arrivals, a welcoming bouquet of flowers was thrust into his arms and a Shanghai SIPG scarf draped over his neck.

Over the next three years, he was joined by other big names, signed for even bigger price tags.

Chelsea star Oscar arrived six months later. The transfer fee was about £60m, while his wages were believed to be £400,000 a week.

Carlos Tevez, who had won the Premier League with Manchester United and City, reportedly earned even more when he joined.

Paris St-Germain star Ezequiel Lavezzi,Liverpool target Alex Teixeira and Colombia striker Jackson Martinez were also lured with astronomical transfer fees and bumper pay cheques.

The rise of the Super League came alongside President Xi Jinping’s wish to turn the country into a footballing nation. In 2011, he announced plans for the men’s national team to qualify for a World Cup and for China to eventually host the tournament.

As the Chinese Super League began spending large sums of money, his ambition to turn the nation into a football super power started to look very real.

“The Chinese market is a danger for all teams in the world, not only for Chelsea,” said the Blues manager Antonio Conte at the time on seeing Oscar head east.

“China looks to have the financial power to move a whole European league to China,” said Arsenal counterpart Arsene Wenger.

Less than a decade on, though, and the movement is in the opposite direction, with the bubble bursting and players leaving.

Short presentational grey line

Jack Sealy was not one of the big-name arrivals. The son of former QPR striker Tony Sealy, he signed for CSL’s Changchun Yatai in December 2015.

Sealy, then 28, had been playing in Hong Kong and was drawn to the Super League by the big names, the higher standard of football and the money that came with it.

“I went out there while it was still growing so it was very exciting to be around,” he told the BBC.

“People had kind of heard about it before but no one really knew about it. And then as soon as you said to someone who knew football, they were like: ‘Oh wow, you’re going to the Super League.’

“I have no regrets about it at all. It was amazing.”

Sealy, in white, pursues Oscar in a match against Shanghai SIPG in March 2017

Amazing, but also strange.

“You kind of have to just completely forget who they are,” he added of some of his big-name opposition.

“I’ve made the step up or they made the step down, however you see it, and you just have to see them as equals and try your best. But it was pretty surreal.

“Oscar – I’ve watched him play with Chelsea – and obviously from playing Fifa, you know all of the players. It was pretty incredible.”

By 2019, the league had become so big that Real Madrid’s Gareth Bale – at one point the most expensive player in the world – was tipped for a move to Jiangsu Suning on a three-year, £1m-a-week contract.

Less than two years later, Jiangsu Suning ceased operating with their financial situation so bad that they even auctioned off the team’s bus for cash.

How did the Chinese football scene implode so spectacularly?

Things went downhill when China’s Football Association, which had already introduced a ‘luxury tax’ that made big-money transfersexternal-link prohibitively expensive and banned sponsors from naming teams after themselves, announced a salary cap in December 2020.

At the time, the CFA said it hoped the move would “curb money football” and provide an “investment bubble” in the Chinese national team.

For some time, China’s sport administration had been wary of the league’s spending. In 2017, it vowed to curb spending and control “irrational investment”, accusing clubs of “burning money” and paying foreign players with “excessive salaries”.

The salary cap certainly had the desired effect. The limit meant overseas players would only be able to earn a maximum of £52,000 a week, far lower than the contracts previously offered to star names.

Some teams needed such restraints having piled up debts via their big spending.

A large number of clubs’ troubles were also exacerbated by their owners’ growing problems in China’ real estate sector with several home-building giants running into cash flow problems.

On top of everything, the Covid pandemic hit.

China’s strict containment policies reduced fixture lists and kept whatever games were staged behind closed doors for more than two years. Broadcast and sponsorship revenues duly plunged.

Carlos Tevez argues with the referee in a match against Brisbane Road

Bosnia-Herzegovina defender Samir Memisevic played for Hebei FC from February 2020 – but by his second season at the club, could tell there were issues behind the scenes.

“The second season, I thought that something was wrong,” he told the BBC.

“After a few months, financial problems started. Then they had a big problem with the Chinese players – they didn’t pay them for a lot of months and I was sure that at the end of that year Hebei would not exist any more.”

Memisevic received and accepted an offer to go on loan to Beijing Guoan, one of the top clubs in the league.

Hebei, who had signed Lavezzi and former Premier League regulars Javier Mascherano and Gervinho during the CSL’s boom times, scrapped their youth teams in a desperate bid to survive.

Some employees, furloughed without pay for months, offered to work for free as the club,external-link owned by a debt-ridden real estate company, struggled to pay its utility bills.

It was all in vain though. Earlier this year, Hebei disbanded.

“I just feel so sorry for Hebei and what happened because they were one of the biggest teams with loads of big names and money,” said Memisevic, who now plays for Al-Nasr in Dubai.

“Now it’s just disappeared.

“It’s really sad but it’s been a thing at a lot of Chinese clubs. I’ve seen that Guangzhou and Wuhan are also disappearing. It’s just really sad.

“I hope that Chinese football will get better because they put a lot of money into it. But I don’t think it will be the same like before.”

For John Hassett, the Chinese Super League will not be the same without his favourite team, Guangzhou City. The club, which has been managed by Eriksson and former Arsenal and Rangers star Giovanni van Bronckhorst in the past, also disbanded in March.

Every home game, Hassett looked forward to meeting fellow fans and joining them to cheer on the team.

“For lots of people, the social side was as important as the football,” he told the BBC.

“We had this tiny little shop outside the ground, so we’d drink there before and after the game. It had also become the haunt of the local Chinese fan group after the game. It became quite a spot.

“We were all gutted. We did a little wake for the club at our beer shop after it closed down. We met up with a couple of other groups and had a beer outside the stadium. It was good fun.

“Part of the problem is that none of the clubs had set themselves up to make money.

“Tickets are very cheap. Our season ticket was £50 or £60. Some of the student groups were buying tickets cheaper than that. Most people don’t buy the official shirts, they got them outside the stadium for £3.

“Revenue generation for clubs is the biggest problem the Super League will have. As the economy tightens, where does the money come from?”

Late last year, as the countdown to reopening stadiums to fans began, another question was being asked; where has the money gone?

A corruption scandal spread through the highest offices of the domestic game.

Former Everton midfielder and ex-head coach of China’s men’s team, Li Tie, was investigated for “serious violations of the law”, with charges of bribery brought in August.external-link

Chen Xuyuan, the Chinese Football Association’s former chairman, is facing similar accusationsexternal-link while South Korea midfielder Son Jun-ho, who played for Shandong Taishan, has been detained since May on suspicion of accepting bribes.external-link

Now, only a small number of foreign players remain in the league. Those currently playing in China, both local and foreign players, did not respond to interview requests from the BBC.

But despite the league’s problems, there is still a demand for domestic football.

When tickets for Beijing Guoan’s first match back in front of a crowd went on sale in April, they sold out within five minutes.

Beijing Guoan fans sing and jump with their backs to the pitch during a Chinese Super League game

Alberto Doldan, who has worked in China with La Liga and made deals in Asia as an agent, said that the aggressive acquisition of talent by top teams in Saudi Arabia currently is reminiscent of the CSL’s peak.

But he insists that the Chinese league still has a future, even if it is different from the one that once seemed possible.

“Many teams in China have disappeared due to financial problems,” he told the BBC.

“But I think the future will be better because they’ve been working with young players. I think in the next five, six or seven years, we’ll get more local players with a higher level.

“China is still a good place. I think the future is in the local players.”

Now with fewer, flown-in superstars, the focus is on producing more homegrown superstars to grow the league and improve China’s prospects at the World Cup, a tournament which, on the men’s side, they have qualified for only once.

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