President of JP Morgan Securities (Thailand) and the Foreign Brokers' Club, Marco Sucharitkul, said competition was now the toughest in 10 years. The country's biggest foreign brokers are considered to be JP Morgan, UBS, Macquarie, CSFB, CLSA and Citigroup.

"Institutional investors at the moment need to use brokers that know the local market well, because there are many factors at play, and the situation needs immediate analysis," he said.

"It is far different from the past when the stock market was quite stable," he said.

"Competition among local brokers is not much different from that of foreign brokers. The difference is that clients of foreign brokers are institutional investors and they trade in high volume. So it is necessary for foreign brokers to maintain their client base. Foreign brokers are currently conducting overseas road shows," he added.

CLSA last week arranged CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets. The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) ac-companied by five listed companies travelled to Singapore. Credit Suisse Securities (Thailand) took the

SET and 12 listed companies to Singapore, New York and London.

Foreign brokers compete on marketing rather than price. Customers are willing to pay higher commissions in return for good analysis, Marco said.

He added that most foreign brokers collected 0.5 per cent of transaction value in fees compared with 0.25 per cent charged by local brokers.

Foreign stock investors have purchased shares on the SET worth a net total of Bt66 billion since the beginning of this year. Local institutional and retail investors have sold net total of Bt15 billion and Bt51.24 billion respectively.

He said that foreign investment in the stock market accounted for just 1.5 per cent of investors' portfolios. Their investment in Thailand ranks behind that in Indonesia and the Philippines.

Siriporn Chanjindamanee

The Nation