The Rajprasong Square Trade Association (RSTA) yesterday urged the government to frame the country's first law on demonstrations as a priority to restore the confidence of foreign tourists and investors coming to Thailand.
Chai Srivikorn, president of RSTA, said the Abhisit government should also order local insurance companies to provide civil unrest insurance coverage to protect business entrepreneurs in the Rajprasong intersection, which had been damaged by the prolonged demonstration.
"Due to the occupation [by the Democratic Alliance against Dictatorship] of Rajprasong district since April 3, it has created huge damage to both large, small, and medium-sized enterprises that had to inevitably stop their retail operations. There have been losses of about Bt5.2 billion per month or Bt174 million per day, affecting the tourism industry and businesses. The rally has also caused an additional Bt600-million loss for the 10 hotels located in the Rajprasong area," said Chai.
He said that besides the closure of hotels, shopping centres and more than 1,000 retail shops, many thousands of workers had been left temporarily jobless because of the protest, affecting their lifestyle, peace and the freedom of workers and the community in Rajprasong. It was hard to predict when the damage was going to end.
"The red-shirt demonstration is crazy, not for democracy," he said.
Chai said the RSTA had been working very closely with the government on a weekly basis about urgent measures needed to help retail tenants and small to medium-sized businesses hit hard by the red-shirt demonstration. Such measures included allocating Bt5-billion loans to small businesses in Rajprasong district at a subsidised interest of the minimum lending rate minus 3 percentage points. Affected businesses also will be allowed to delay their corporate-tax payments.
This will help about 2,000 small enterprises that now have liquidity problems due to the prolonged protests.
"We [RSTA], in coordination with the government and all retail and hotel operators in Rajprasong, are planning a six-month rehabilitation package to restore the number of tourists and shoppers to the shopping district after the end of the red-shirt demonstration," said Chai.
RSTA yesterday launched its "RSTA Call Centre" for business operators who have been affected to voice their problems and concerns to be submitted to the government for considering aid programmes.
Naris Cheyklin, senior executive vice-president for finance and accounting, Central Pattana (CPN), which operates the CentralWorld shopping complex in Rajprasong, said the shopping complex could be fully opened in just one or two days after the red-shirt demonstrations end.
"We are also preparing discount campaigns and other activities to draw people back to the shopping mall. We also expect everything will come back to normal within three to four months after the end of the rally," he said.
Naris said the red-shirt demonstration had caused a total loss of not less than Bt1.2 billion to CentralWorld, retail anchors, including Zen and Isetan, and all retail tenants in the shopping complex over the past one month.
"We ourselves have delayed the collection of rental payment from our 500 retail tenants since April to help improve their liquidity," he said.
Terames Lertsavetpong, brand manager of Ragazze Leather, operator of "Viera by Ragazze" shops that sell branded leather accessories, said that the company's sales dropped dramatically by 70 per cent due to the closure of its flagship stores at CentralWorld and Siam Paragon.
"The red-shirt demonstration has not only impacted our sales, but the way of living of our 14 employees, who worked at those closed stores and were transferred to other outlets such as in Pinklao and Bangna," said Terames.
"I personally want to suggest that the government change its way of communicating with the people, especially demonstrators. Government messages should be delivered directly to the red-shirt demonstrators through a host of debate sessions that would allow red-shirt participation," he said.
Nakhom Thavornthawat, director of Xinn Tien Di Chinese Restaurant at Gaysorn shopping complex, said that all 30 staff employed by the restaurant had suffered due to the closure of the restaurant over the demonstration period.
"We would like to see the current political conflict settled as soon as possible so that all business entrepreneurs can run their stores normally," he said.