News Brief
Phuket’s tourist safety: a success story
T
he Nordic Coordination Emergency Group (NCEG) has recently held a meeting to evaluate the progress made since its establishment in December 2013 to get Nordic embassies and tourist agencies to cooperate to improve tourist safety and build up preparedness for emergencies. The group, comprising 15 members, said at the 11 March meeting that they were happy with safety standards currently in place in Phuket, one of Thailand’s most popular destinations of tourists from the Nordic region. The Nordic Coordination Emergency Group in front of the Embassy in Bangkok. Photo: Danish Embassy in Bangkok The just-ended high season, from end of December to early March, when up to 60 plane-loads of Nordic tourists arrived in Thailand per week, was declared a success. During that period, there had been no major emergency situation and no accident involving large number of tourists. There were some accidents here and there but no fatalities were reported due to some wellthought-out safety initiatives. The NCEG invited Duncan Stewart from Safer Phuket, a safety advocacy group, to speak at the meeting. The NCEG was told that Safer Phuket has put defibrillators on standby along the white beaches of Phuket. One tourist’s life was actually saved at one of those beaches thanks to the availability of a defibrillator that had been put up on the very same day. Lifeguard towers have also been erected on some beaches funded by companies, which then can use the towers as advertising space. It is NCEG hope that they can encourage even more Nordic companies to contribute to the development of a safer Phuket and in exchange for good publicity. Safer Phuket has safety at sea as its focus, but it is also interested in promoting traffic safety. The NCEG hopes that once they succeed to improve tourist safety and preparedness for emergencies, similar projects could be expanded to the rest of Thailand.
Danish envoy visits ECCO Thailand
D
anish Embassy staff were given a tour of the recently renovated factory and tannery, obtaining a detailed insight into the many stages of production as well as the actions taken to reduce the factory’s resource and energy consumption. Danish Ambassador, Mikael Hemniti Winther; Commercial Counsellor, Asbjørn Overgaard Christiansen; and Senior Commercial Officer, Nantima Angkatavanich recently paid a visit to ECCO’s factory in Saha Rattana Nakorn Industrial Estate, Ayutthaya, just north of Bangkok. The management of the Danish shoe company’s Thai branch presented a recently renovated factory with updated machinery and a brand new tannery, brought on as a result of the devastating floods of late 2011. ECCO is the world’s largest casual footwear producer, providing products to 90 different markets with China and Russia as the biggest. The philosophy is to make shoes that are shaped to fit the foot, not the other way around. ECCO Thailand was established in 1993, has produced approximately 3.7 million pairs of shoes this year, and will employ 3200 people by the end of 2014.
Photo: Embassy of Denmark in Thailand
New Danish logistic hub opens in Thailand
O
n March 14, Denmark’s Ambassador to Thailand, Mikael Hemniti Winther, officially opened DSV brand-new warehouse on Bangna-Trad Km. 22. DSV Air & Sea, a Danish global supplier of transport and logistics services, strengthened their business in Thailand by opening the new impressive warehouse on the strategic location. The CEO Asia of DSV, Mr. Peter Minor highlighted that the warehouse is planned to support the expansion of DSV Thailand as the company is ready for the increasing business, both from the local potentials and the upcoming AEC. The Ambassador expressed his delight to witness the Danish business footprint growing up in the country. He also emphasized that the DSV newly location is not only a warehouse but a logistic hub which connects Denmark, Thailand and other countries in the region. Since the company has been running the business here for 27 years, during the opening ceremony, DSV illustrated their strong relationship between Denmark and Thailand through cultural shows of the two countries which one of them was performed by DSV staff. April 2014 • ScandAsia.Thailand 11