Good morning,

Shrimp producers are the latest group to reveal the ongoing impact of the global financial crisis: they will reduce their level of production by 20% in the face of declining demand in Australia and Japan in particular. Provincial business leaders have expressed their concerns about ‘massive layoffs’ next year and hope that the new coalition government will appoint some proper people to help rebuild the economy after the PAD Disaster. House prices, meanwhile, are predicted to be around 10% lower than this year, which will at least help people wishing to buy houses, even if it will not do much for people wanting to sell.

Bus fares have been reduced by pretty much the minimum possible amount: air conditioned bus fares will go down by one baht and ‘hot’ bus fares by 50 satang – which is really not very much given the reduction in oil prices over recent months. If the government is going to mess about with tiny cuts like this, then there is not much hope for the kind of significant increases in spending that will be necessary to stave off the worst effects of the recession – given that we have just witnessed the army bringing in a laissez-faire Democrat government, of course, there is not much hope anyway.

Thailand got a fairly straightforward 1-0 win away in Jakarta in the first leg of the AFF Suzuki Cup semi-final play-off. The winning goal came after just five minutes, scored by former Manchester City hopeful Teerasil Dangda and the Thais could have gone three or four up with better finishing. However, finishing the job off on Saturday in Bangkok should now be routine. Attention switches to the Vietnam-Singapore semi-final, with the first leg to be held tonight in Hanoi.

Back tomorrow at some stage, probably the afternoon as I am due to go to Pathum Thani in the morning.