Thailand

The reporter recently learned that the former Thai Prime Minister Yingluck has served as the legal representative and chairman of Guangdong Shantou International Container Terminal Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Shantou Container Terminal) in December 2018.

　　 Shantou Container Terminal was established in 1994 with a registered capital of 88 million US dollars. The current shareholder and capital contribution information still shows that (Hong Kong) Hutchison Port Shantou Co., Ltd. is the majority shareholder with 70% of the shares, Shantou China Merchants Port Co., Ltd. has 30% of the shares, and the latter is China Merchants Port Development (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. and Shantou City The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission was established as a joint venture.

　　 However, the industrial and commercial change information shows that on December 12, 2018, the legal representative of Shantou Container Terminal was changed from Lin Daqi to Yingluck Shinawatra. Yingluck Shinawatra is the English name of former Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.

　　 Shantou Port is one of the 25 major national-level ports along the coast of China and one of the five major hub ports in Guangdong. Shantou Port currently has 7 port areas, with a cargo throughput of about 50 million tons and a container throughput of about 1.3 million TEU (international standard unit), accounting for 55% and 99% of the total volume of the three ports in eastern Guangdong, respectively. Shantou Port is one of the few ports with more than one million TEUs outside of coastal economic centers such as the Pearl River Delta, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Bohai Bay.

　　The Shantou Container Terminal is located at Zhuchi Port, Shantou Special Economic Zone, Guangdong Province, 187 nautical miles northeast of Hong Kong and 214 nautical miles west of Taiwan. In 1993, Li Ka-shing Hutchison Port Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Hutchison Ports)'s Hong Kong International Container Terminal Co., Ltd. (HIT) and Shantou Port Authority jointly established Shantou International Container Terminal Co., Ltd., which is the earliest professional container terminal in Shantou Port.

　　 Currently, the official website of Shantou International Container Terminals Co., Ltd. still shows that the company is a member of Hutchison Port Group Co., Ltd.

　　 But in October 2018, Hutchison Port Trust, listed in Singapore, announced that Hutchison Port intends to sell its 70% stake in Shantou Container Terminal, and Hutchison Port Trust has given up the right of first refusal.

　　 As of press time, Hutchison Port, whose parent company is CK Hutchison Industrial Co., Ltd., has not yet responded to The Paper (www.thepaper.cn) as the final target for the sale of 70% of its Shantou container terminal.

Currently, Hutchison Port’s official website for Mainland China only shows Huizhou Port, Ningbo Beilun International Container Terminal, Shanghai Mingdong Container Terminal, Shanghai Pudong International Container Terminal, Xiamen International Container Terminal, and Hutchison Port Huizhou International Container Terminal of Hutchison Port Trust , Jiangmen International Container Terminal, Nanhai International Container Terminal, Hutchison Port Shenzhen Hutchison Inland Container Warehousing, and Hutchison Port Yantian International have deleted relevant information about Shantou International Container Terminal.

　　 Yingluck was born in 1967 and his ancestral home is Meizhou City, Guangdong Province, China. He and his elder brother Thaksin both served as Prime Minister of Thailand. In the 2011 Thailand general election, Yingluck’s leadership, representing the civilian class, won the election for the Thai party and became Thailand’s first female prime minister.

　　 But in the second half of 2013, a political crisis broke out in Thailand over the issue of the amnesty bill. The opposition organized a large-scale demonstration and rally to demand Yingluck's resignation. In the end, the Constitutional Court of Thailand dismissed Yingluck from the post of prime minister in May 2014.

　　 On September 27, 2017, the Supreme Court of Thailand sentenced her to the rice purchase case in the absence of the defendant's former prime minister Yingluck. The court found Yingluck guilty of dereliction of duty and condoning corruption and sentenced her to five-year imprisonment without probation.