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From a reader:
Bangkok is still in the midst of a real estate/building frenzy……a kind of boom……less than 1 percent unemployment rate as well as hundreds of new hi-rises (condos, office towers & shopping centers) going up in every direction…..this new shopping center, called Terminal 21, is a block from my place and opened a few days ago…..30 state-of-the-art digital cinemas, vast & yummy food court, tens of thousands of people from all over Thailand, Asia and the world…..all this despite Thailand’s political chaos and the severe recession in North and Europe over the past few years…..
Have been twice to this place since its opening. I like the food court on the fifth floor where my favourite veggie foods cost less than the ones at Paragon or MBK. Once you are inside the building, you forget we have floods crisis in the country.
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[…] Click to see some great photos of the shopping space […]
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Terminal 21 is just what Bangkok needs: Another shiny, glassed-in, over-air-con’d retail space to forget about whatever crisis is currently crippling other parts of Thailand. Meh.
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Even the worst places in Bangkok have superior food to the “crap”served up in places like Canberra. Not only is most of it extremely bland but also over-priced and I am damned sure the benefits don’t accrue to most of those who produce the food. Apart from the crappy weather than one experiences in Canberra and probably the pathetically medicocre intleectual life – well there might be some exceptions to the ruke – I am not sure what a place like Canberra has to offer…
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Jatuporn, Arisman….where are you? Your silence is deafening.
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I had to go there on the opening and that place is a psychedelic nightmare, combining the wonderful consumerism of a mall and the agoraphobic atmosphere of an airport, something we already have in BKK – Suwannabhumi. Not enough Xanax in the world will bring me back. I just hope some developer finally razes Lumpini Park to build an equally superfluous, ill-thought out themed shopping complex.
-R
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Why the sudden Canberra bashing? Did I miss something?
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The opening of Terminal 21 has already been adequately discussed on Thai Visa. I am surprised at NM for bothering with this non-news.
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I live in BKK, been to that mall.
As said, construction seems to be booming, most of it expensive condos.
Who can afford to live in them, I can’t.
Bubble waiting to burst?
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Despite the severe problems in the world economy, despite financial crisis in major European countries and slow growth in the U.S., and even despite the huge flooding crisis and dislocation in Thailand, there seems to be an total real estate boom going on in Bangkok, Pattaya/Jomtien and Phuket.
No one seems to know why exactly and where all the billions of investment capital is coming from.
And even though Bangkok is already saturated with large Shopping Malls, the just opened Terminal 21 Mall which has 300 or so shops, 50 or so restaurants, 15 or so cinemas, etc. is teeming with people every day and evening. Apparently 50,000 plus people per day.
With yet another even larger shopping mall is under construction a few blocks away opposite the Emporium Mall at which point one wonders at what point the source of investment capital will dry up and the availability of shoppers/consumers will have reached its limit.
(Attached link to BKK Post piece on Terminal 21’s successful opening: http://www.bangkokpost.com/travel/travel-feature/266133/global-therapy )
While some would question wasting time discussing the topic of shopping malls in Bangkok during the time of the flooding crisis and tragedy, the actual discussion is the seeming invulnerability of the Thai economy to the global pressure as well as the severe internal political pressures and crisis.
Why is it that Thailand, with almost its entire female portion of the population working, and 4 to 5 million immigrant workers from Burma, Laos and Cambodia, has an unemployment rate of less than 1%? That’s basically “full employment”.
Why is it that the Rayong-Jomtien-Pattaya-Laem Chabang-Chonburi urban/tourist/industrial zone is in the midst of a condo and low-rise construction boom?
Why is it that Phuket is in the middle of a condo/hotel/villa construction and tourist boom?
Why are the millions of new tourists from Russia, Iran, the Gulf Arab States, India, China seemingly 100% undeterred from visiting Thailand for a few weeks and even a month or two?
What is the secret ingredient in the Thai system that is making all of this possible in the face of so much adversity?
Cash from Burma, Laos, China, Iran, the Gulf States and India? The desperate need for huge Japanese companies to invest in manufacturing facilities outside of Japan and not only in China? The huge cash flow generated in Thailand’s underground economy, especially the multi-billion dollar sex, gambling and counterfeit industries?
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