Chinese developer under scrutiny over Bangkok tower quake collapse
A Chinese construction company is facing questions over the deadly collapse of a Bangkok skyscraper -- the only major building in the capital to fall in a catastrophic earthquake that has killed more than 2,000 people in Thailand and neighbouring Myanmar.
The 30-storey tower, still under construction, was to house government offices, but the shaking reduced the structure to a pile of rubble in seconds, killing at least 13 people and injuring nine.
It was the deadliest single incident in Thailand after Friday's 7.7-magnitude quake, with the majority of the kingdom's 20 fatalities thought to be workers on the building site and hopes fading for around 70 still trapped.
Sprawling Bangkok bristles with countless high-rise blocks, but none have reported major damage, prompting many to ask why the block under construction gave way.
"We have to investigate where the mistake happened," said Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, who has ordered a probe into the materials and safety standards at the construction site.
"What happened from the beginning since it was designed? How was this design approved? This was not the first building in the country," she told reporters on Saturday.
The development near Bangkok's popular Chatuchak market was a joint project involving China Railway No. 10 Engineering Group (Thailand) -- an offshoot of China Railway Group (CREC), one of the world's largest construction and engineering contractors.
- Questions raised -
Testing of steel rebars -- struts used to reinforce concrete -- from the site has found that some of the metal used was substandard, Thai safety officials said on Monday.
Industry Minister Akanat Promphan announced that a committee would be set up to investigate, saying one supplier of the steel had failed safety tests in December and may have its licence withdrawn. He did not name the supplier.
Professor of Civil Engineering at King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Ladkrabang Suchatwee Sunaswat said there were questions to be answered.
"We have to look at the design. At the beginning, how they calculate, how they design. And in the rescue mission, how they collect evidence at the same time," he told reporters on Saturday.
- Safety complaints -
The local partner in the project, Italian-Thai Development (ITD) offered condolences on Monday to quake victims but said it was "confident" the incident would not impact its other projects.
Beijing-owned building conglomerate CREC is one of the world's largest construction and engineering contractors, with projects in more than 90 countries and regions, according to its website.
The Bangkok construction collapse is not the first time CREC and its subsidiaries have come under fire after deadly incidents.
A tide of anger was unleashed at authorities in Serbia following the deaths of 14 people when a roof collapsed in November last year at a train station built by CREC subsidiaries -- largely focused on reports of alleged shortcuts made with building projects.
Roisai Wongsuban of the Migrant Working Group advocacy organisation said there have been a large number of complaints from migrant workers employed by Chinese companies in Thailand about lax safety standards and poor labour rights.
"For Chinese companies we can't see the human rights due diligence, to see if labour standards are being met," she told AFP.
"There is always a power imbalance between employer and employee."
Bangkok's construction boom is powered by an army of labourers, a large proportion of them migrant workers from Myanmar, toiling on hot building sites for low pay.
The Migrant Working Group has called on Thailand's labour ministry to hold the employers involved in the construction project criminally liable if they have failed to meet health and safety laws.
- China sensitivities -
AFP has asked China Rail No. 10 Engineering Thailand and CREC for comment but has not had a response.
An announcement celebrating the completion of the main structure at the Chatuchak construction site posed on China Rail No. 10's official WeChat channel was deleted soon after Friday's quake.
AFP archived the post shortly after the tremors hit but before the page was removed.
Local media said that four Chinese nationals were apprehended on Saturday for attempting to retrieve documents from the collapse site.
But China is the largest source of foreign direct investment in Thailand, injecting $2 billion into the kingdom in 2024, according to Open Development Thailand, and the government typically handles anything linked to Beijing with kid gloves.
Paetongtarn said an investigation into the collapse launched on Monday would not be "specific to one country".
"We do not want one particular country to think we are only keeping eyes on (it)," she said on Tuesday.
At a small shelter near the site on Monday, 45-year-old Naruemol Thonglek waited for news of her boyfriend, electrician Kyi Than, who was missing under the enormous mound of concrete and twisted metal being lifted by mechanical diggers.
"I'm devastated," she told AFP. "I've never seen anything like this in my entire life."
sjc-ci/pdw/dhw
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
24 minutes ago
- Yahoo
May CPI preview: Inflation expected to tick higher as tariff uncertainty lingers
May's Consumer Price Index (CPI) is expected to show prices increased at a slightly faster clip than in April. The report, due Wednesday at 8:30 a.m. ET, comes as investors closely watch for any signs that President Trump's tariffs are impacting what consumers pay. According to Bloomberg data, headline inflation is expected to have accelerated slightly to 2.4% in May from 2.3% in April, which marked the lowest yearly increase since February 2021. Month-over-month prices are estimated to rise 0.2%, matching April's increase. On a "core" basis, which excludes volatile food and energy costs, CPI is expected to have risen 2.9% over the past year in May, a slight acceleration from April's 2.8%. Monthly core price increases are anticipated to rise 0.3%, ahead of April's 0.2%. The report reflects the time period about a month after Trump's "Liberation Day" tariff announcements shook markets and businesses. Since then, many reciprocal tariffs have been paused, but the 10% baseline duties for most countries remain in place. Mexico and Canada continue to face fentanyl-related tariffs, and industry-specific tariffs on steel, aluminum, and autos remain unchanged. Tariffs on China remain significant, with the effective tariff rate on Chinese goods hovering around 30%. "May's CPI report will be an important test of the speed and magnitude to which higher tariff rates are being passed along to the consumer," said the Wells Fargo economics team, led by Sarah House, in a preview note. House expects a modest rise in overall and core inflation from higher goods prices but doesn't foresee a big jump in this report. Still, economists there say the risk of higher prices later this year remains, a view shared by many on Wall Street. Read more: How to protect your savings against inflation "Going forward, the impact of tariffs will likely provide a somewhat larger boost to monthly inflation, and we expect monthly core CPI inflation of around 0.35% over the next few months," Jan Hatzius of Goldman Sachs wrote, noting a "sharp acceleration" in most core goods categories but limited impact on core services inflation, at least in the near term. Meanwhile, BNP Paribas said that although May's core inflation reading could register its strongest monthly gain since Q2 2023, hotter prints are expected in June and July. According to BNP, price increases from tariffs typically appear two to three months after implementation. However, broader uncertainty about the timing and impact of tariff-related price changes has weighed on the outlook. "The Trump administration's 'yo yo' approach to implementing tariffs and attendant uncertainties about their timing, form, and longevity may encourage firms to adopt a policy of strategic patience around increasing prices," Andy Schneider, senior US economist at BNP Paribas, wrote in a note to clients last week. "This could potentially delay tariff-induced inflation, in addition to leading to an ultimately messier and more persistent response." Echoing this uncertainty, Atlanta Fed president Raphael Bostic recently said constant tariff changes are "making it much harder to declare with any conviction that price increases from tariffs will be a one-time event." Markets still expect the Fed to hold interest rates steady at its policy meeting next week. Allie Canal is a Senior Reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on X @allie_canal, LinkedIn, and email her at
Yahoo
29 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Commentary: How Chinese imports are skirting Trump's tariffs
There's a huge drop underway in Chinese imports entering the US — from China. But Chinese goods are arriving anyway, via other Asian nations such as Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia. That may be good news for shoppers, because it means cheap Chinese goods are still making it to US stores despite the higher costs imposed by President Trump's new import taxes. But shifting trade patterns will surely get Trump's attention, and the tariff-happy president could easily put a stop to it by raising import taxes on what are turning out to be loophole countries. Trump's aggressive tariff regime is meant to make most imported products more expensive to encourage more domestic production. But Trump's uneven approach has created opportunities for a kind of trade arbitrage that was all but inevitable. As things stand now, Trump has imposed new import taxes of 30% on most goods from China but only 10% on imports from most other nations. That 20% differential is a big advantage for the less-tariffed countries. Sure enough, trade data shows that Chinese exporters are almost certainly "transshipping" goods to the US by passing them through neighboring countries. Chinese data shows that exports to the US dropped 35% in May compared with a year earlier. But during the same period, Chinese exports to six other Asian nations jumped 15%, including a 22% increase in exports to Vietnam and Thailand, a 12% jump in exports to Singapore, and an 11% rise in shipments to Indonesia. "[China's] direct exports to the US are down sharply, but its exports to all kinds of places across Asia are up massively," economist Robin Brooks of the Brookings Institution posted on social media on June 9. "These are obviously transshipments to the US via third countries."The US Department of Commerce hasn't yet published trade data for May, but data for April shows the mirror image of the Chinese data. Imports from China fell 20% from 2024 levels, while there was a 48% jump in Vietnamese imports, a 32% jump in shipments from Thailand, and a 16% increase in goods from Malaysia. Trade experts have been predicting this shift since Trump began imposing new import taxes in February, because it's the same thing that happened during the trade wars Trump waged during his first presidential term. Vietnam, in particular, was a big beneficiary of Trump's tariffs on Chinese imports in 2018 and 2019. While imports from China fell by 11% from 2017 to 2019, imports from Vietnam boomed by 43%. Read more: What Trump's tariffs mean for the economy and your wallet Since Trump's first trade war, many Asian producers and their US customers have carefully diversified so they're not overdependent on China. The US now imports less clothing from China, as one example, and more from Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, and India. Transshipment can mean that some products are fully assembled in China and simply make a brief stopover in another country before heading to the US so that their country of origin isn't China. Governments tend to discourage that, however, because those countries gain little from merely serving as a way station for Chinese products headed to the US. Plus, it may attract unwanted attention from Trump. Chinese companies are also increasingly building their own production facilities outside of China. "There are two ways to transship," Jason Judd, executive director of the Global Labor Institute at Cornell University, told Yahoo Finance. "In one, you're just cheating. In the other, you disassemble your product in China and send the inputs and the know-how to a new place." In Cambodia, for example, most of the companies making goods that go to the US have Chinese ownership. Trump's "reciprocal" tariffs — on ice for the moment — are meant, in part, to target countries that are way stations for Chinese products. When Trump announced those nation-by-nation tariffs on April 2, Asian trade partners other than China got hit with some of the highest rates. The new tariff on Chinese imports was 34%. For Cambodia, the new tariff rate was 49%. Vietnam: 46%. Thailand: 36%. Indonesia: 32%. Malaysia: 24%. Those rates weren't based specifically on transshipment of Chinese products but on the size of the trade deficit in goods each country has with the US. The larger the deficit, the higher the tariff. Read more: 5 ways to tariff-proof your finances Trump suspended those tariffs on April 9, following a week of mayhem in financial markets. That eventually left the tariff rates at 30% on most imports from China and 10% on most imports from every other country. But Trump said the reciprocal tariffs could go back into effect if nations don't make trade deals with him one by one by a July 9 deadline. By then, a boom in imports from Asian nations other than China will give Trump plenty of justification for more reciprocal tariffs. But he may choose to overlook it. Trump seems to have a much bigger trade beef with China than he does with other nations. His advisers are also telling him that high tariffs across the board could mean shocking price increases on clothing, electronics, appliances, and many other things just as Americans start their back-to-school shopping this summer. After that will come a Christmas season possibly starring Trump as the Grinch. So Trump might end up talking tough on China and looking the other way as the country's products enter the side door. That would make stealthy Chinese imports an unintended innovation triggered by Trump's trade war. Rick Newman is a senior columnist for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Bluesky and X: @rickjnewman. Click here for political news related to business and money policies that will shape tomorrow's stock prices.
Yahoo
30 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Sask. to put American-made booze back on the shelves
The Saskatchewan Liquor and Gaming Authority (SLGA) is resuming the purchase and distribution of American-made alcohol. All American alcohol products will now be available for purchase through all distribution centres and private liquor distributors in the province, said David Morris, a spokesperson for the corporation, in a statement to CBC on Tuesday. "This change gives Saskatchewan people the option to choose whether they want to buy these products or consider alternatives," Morris said. The federal government's 25-per-cent tariff on U.S. alcohol remains in effect. Morris said Saskatchewan consumers are still encouraged to support Saskatchewan and Canadian products when there is an option. The change comes nearly three months after the province reversed its decision to stop selling some American-branded alcohol products made in Canada. In March, the province announced a ban on all American alcohol products. It then walked back that ban for 54 brands that, while American-owned, are produced in Canada. It said in a statement the move aligned with other provinces and that it would focus its ban on alcohol produced in America.
