briefs

Egat to buy power from Laos plant

Xe-Pian Xe-Namnoy Power Co has signed a power-purchase agreement with the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat).

Under the agreement signed on Wednesday, Egat will buy electricity from the company's hydropower plant in Laos for 27 years, after it commences commercial operations in 2018.

Ratchaburi Electricity Generating Holding holds a 25-per-cent stake in the company. Other shareholders are SK Engineering & Construction (26 per cent), Korea Western Power (25 per cent) and the government of Laos (24 per cent).

The power plant is in Laos' Attapue and Jampasak provinces, with installed capacity of 410 megawatts.

Cloud security office

The Electronic Government Agency (Public Organisation) and the Information and Communications Technology Ministry have signed a memorandum of intent with the Cloud Security Alliance to found an official CSA office in Thailand with the aim of providing better public services. The EGA will handle human resources and budget issues to support all activities related to the CSA.

"This effort aims to promote security systems for cloud computing among users," said Nattapong Seetavorarat, adviser to the ICT minister. "This MoI will greatly benefit Asean. The cloud computing system in Thailand, especially G-Cloud, will continue to enjoy sustainable growth on the basis of the GIN [Government Information Network] system, which can be scalable to Super GIN for more network [coverage in] other areas."

The "Smart Farmer" and other solutions will be launched to improve working processes and offer better services to the public, Nattapong said. All systems will be based on the cloud system. In this regard, the G-Cloud of Thailand will be extensive and grow tremendously. Thus the security system and legal aspects will also grow to promote confidence.

The MoI was signed as part of the "Asean CSA Summit 2013" in Bangkok.

Chevrolet sales up

Chevrolet Sales Thailand delivered 6,039 vehicles last month, 59 per cent more than it achieved in January of its record-breaking year, 2012.

The Colorado pickup remained its best-selling model at 2,476 units, followed by the Sonic (1,689 units), Trailblazer (694), Captiva (618), Cruze (504) and Aveo (58).

Across Southeast Asia, Chevrolet also posted strong results in most major markets last month. It sold 452 vehicles in Indonesia (up 48 per cent year on year), 155 in Malaysia (up 29 per cent), 377 in the Philippines (up 48 per cent) and 187 in Singapore (up 36 per cent).

Across the region, it sold 7,424 vehicles, up 60 per cent.