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"I'm a kind of conservative person. I should have given more time to my own personal finance. But so far, I've given priority to some¬thing else," Chaipatr, the CEO of Seamico Securities, says.

As an executive of a securities firm, Chaipatr cannot invest in stocks because it would vio¬late the regulation regarding conflict of inter¬est. So he invested in something else that would not break the rule and required less attention than investing in stocks.

"I invested only in land," he says.

"I did that [invest in land] just like my father. They're assets. The value of land allows us to make longterm investment. The prices rise pretty high over time if we stick to the con¬cept of location, location, and location… Population globally rises all the time, and relatively, the size of available land gets smaller over time," the CEO said.

A year and a half ago, he invested in a plot of land in Khao Yai in Nakhon Ratchasima at around Bt300,000 per rai and recently some¬one offered to buy this land at Bt1.2 million a rai.

Looking into the typ¬ical overall invest¬ment portfolio of Asians, land would comprise a signifi¬cant proportion aside from other assets, including cash and stocks, he says.

"Land investment is not that conserva¬tive as it is risky at a certain level. Unlike stocks, land is not liq¬uid. But you can use it to pledge with banks for loans," he says.

Chaipatr said he invested in land, in par¬ticular land plots that are large enough to com¬mercialise in Bangkok, the provinces, and overseas.

To Chaipatr, one should consider buying houses rather than renting them. Once one pays off the mortgage for houses or condominiums, one becomes the owner and can sell with value.

Thus, he prefers mort¬gage debt to car leasing.

"If you buy expensive cars such as BMW or Mercedes, you would see a significant drop in prices over three to five years. So, being in debt for car might not be a good choice," Chaipatr said.

As a top executive of a securities firm, he thinks Thais currently have more opportunities to invest in various financial products. Globalisation has made flows from country to country much faster now.

People who have invested in China, India and Vietnam in the past five years would have gained significantly.

"When one thinks about personal finance, one shouldn't look at only stocks or debentures in Thailand but diversify to other parts of the world which offer higher returns," Chaipatr said.

Thai investors still have low education of global financial products, which, in fact, is part of Thailand's overall education problem.

"Talking about education on personal finance, you must talk about education as a whole. There's much to do with it [education], though it's a big problem that is hard to solve," he concluded.