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Public pressure over the social consequences of alcohol has forced the Bangkok stock exchange to postpone indefinitely the listing of Thai Beverages, Thailand’s largest brewer and the maker of the country’s best-selling Chang beer.
A crowd estimated at between 5000 and 10,000 and including 500 Buddhist monks in saffron robes converged on the stock exchange on the day when the company was to be listed. The stock exchange then announced the delay so that the listing could take place ‘free of outside pressure’.
The company had hoped to raise 40billion baht ($1bn, £530m) in the flotation, which would have been the largest by value in Thai history and the first by a brewer.
The protesters, backed by Chamlong Srimuang, a long-time mentor of prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, say alcohol is contrary to Buddhism, Islam and Thai culture, and is unacceptable in a country where alcoholism is a serious problem and drink is blamed for ill health, traffic accidents, injuries, domestic violence and crime.
Buddhists also reminded the stock exchange that its rules bar companies whose merchandise is not beneficial to national well-being.
A crowd estimated at between 5000 and 10,000 and including 500 Buddhist monks in saffron robes converged on the stock exchange on the day when the company was to be listed. The stock exchange then announced the delay so that the listing could take place ‘free of outside pressure’.
The company had hoped to raise 40billion baht ($1bn, £530m) in the flotation, which would have been the largest by value in Thai history and the first by a brewer.
The protesters, backed by Chamlong Srimuang, a long-time mentor of prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, say alcohol is contrary to Buddhism, Islam and Thai culture, and is unacceptable in a country where alcoholism is a serious problem and drink is blamed for ill health, traffic accidents, injuries, domestic violence and crime.
Buddhists also reminded the stock exchange that its rules bar companies whose merchandise is not beneficial to national well-being.
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