Editorial | Parnbua BoonParn:A New Age Focused Media MD

The rains are most definitely upon us. While many parts of the world have been suffering from excruciatingly hot temperatures and drought and others fierce flash flooding, Thailand has been doing well weathering the storms, leaving the countryside and parks lush and verdant, the air refreshingly clear.

This period has also been a time of celebration, beginning with the 90th Birthday Anniversary of Her Majesty Queen Sirikit The Queen Mother on 12 August, and in this issue we feature an interview with the ambassador of Brazil to Thailand, HE Jose Borges dos Santos Junior, by Kathleen Pokrud, as he discusses the close ties that have grown between Brazil and Thailand as well as plans for celebrating his country’s 200th Anniversary of Independence. Later, in our Country Portrait column, HE Alex Geiger, Chilean ambassador to Thailand, talks about the celebrations to mark 60 years of diplomatic relations between Chile and Thailand as Chile sets out on a new course under a new president.

Elite+ was also very fortunate to have the chance to sit down with Ms Parnbua Boonparn, the visionary managing director of Matichon PCL and hear how she sees the media industry evolving. Also in this issue, we introduce the newly elected mayor of Pattaya, Poramase – ‘Beer’ – Ngampiches, who tells us about the 15 Initiatives he is promoting to make Pattaya a “Liveable City for a Global Community” and the premier destination for both domestic and international visitors. After this, we take you to nearby Si Racha and The Pacific Park Hotel & Residence before sitting down for slow-brewed, temperature perfect java and delectables at one of Bangkok’s trendiest lifestyle coffee shops and restaurants, CDGRE, nestled in the Gourmet Garden of Siam Paragon. Even before, though, Khun Kavin Kittiboonya, managing director of Kavin Intertrade Co, Ltd and organiser of the 16th Thailand, Coffee, Tea & Drinks and Thailand Bakery & Ice Cream exhibition, shares with us his insights into hosting a successful trade show focusing on coffee and related sectors.

In Travel, Mick Elmore shares with you the changing American landscape now sprouting massive wind turbines across the country before Khun Pongpol Adireksarn unveils the exotic land formations and animals found in the Namib Sand Sea: Namibia’s Second World Heritage Site.

We then have one more gala for you, the 11th Celebration of Silk: Thai Silk Road to the World 2022, organised to honour HM The Queen Mother during which many members of the Bangkok diplomatic corps took to the catwalk to model the creations of Thai fashion students, and then to end this issue, award-winning author Anchalee Vivathanachai tells a story of heartbreak caused by gambling fever after which Ezra Kyrill Erker reveals the forgotten beauty of ‘Pattani Patterns’.

I do hope you will find all the following pages as entertaining and enlightening as I did as we put this issue together.

Warm Regards,
Arthorn Techatada
Executive Editor