The department's deputy director-general Komkai Thusaranon said yesterday that the insurance industry had not responded to market demand for gold-shop protection. At present there is only one type of gold shop insurance, and the low coverage it offers has led goldsmiths to ignore insurance altogether. Only 5 per cent of the country's 10,000 goldsmith shops have insurance.

The department will call a meeting with the Gold Traders' Association next week to create a new type of insurance that will provide cover for shops during trading and at night and will also cover the lives of owners and staff.

Website awards

Thai ad agency Thomas Idea has won silver and bronze awards in the website category at the 2007 Summit Creative Awards for the design of websites for the Mahaphant Group and TK Park.

There were more than 5,000 entries this year. Organisers claim the awards are unique as they restrict competition to firms with billings beneath a certain level, while entries compete against entries rather than striving to achieve an arbitrary standard of excellence.

The competition is open to advertising and public relations agencies; advertisers and in-house marketing departments; video production and multimedia firms; graphic and web designers and other allied companies with annual billings of less than US$25 million (Bt864 million).