Despite all this, increased income from advertising, effectively low newsprint prices and continued strict control on costs and staff numbers combined to make the year exceptionally good for the company.

The year 2000 was a good news year for the editorial staff of the Bangkok Post. The Bangkok Governor elections, and in particular the Senate elections and campaigning for the 2001 general elections both conducted under the new constitution dominated coverage. Apart from a series of roundtable discussions to flesh out key political, economic and social issues, the Bangkok Post organised a high profile Economic Forum attended by top Thai and expatriate business leaders. Preparations were also made in 2000 to launch a new section on personal finance. Other new initiatives are being planned for 2001.

Our production facilities are constantly upgraded and our newspaper is printed and delivered every day of the year to our subscribers, hotels, airlines, apartments, hospitals, and news agents all over the country.

Magazine publishing had a good year, showing an improved profit before tax. Due to the fact that carry-forward losses, which could be offset against taxable profits, were virtually exhausted, there was a charge for income tax for the first time in the history of the joint venture, Hachette Filipacchi Post. As a result, the net profit was slightly lower than the previous years. The sales of the magazines ELLE, ELLE DECOR, and CLEO increased substantially, as did the advertising revenue, but this was largely offset by sharply rising costs, mainly resulting from increased prices of the high quality paper used in the production of the magazines.

The appointment of a new sales and marketing director will enable us to improve our focus on marketing activities and will be aimed at increasing the number of our subscribers and our advertising revenue. In general, a thorough review of our entire organisation and human resources will be made to keep us in the forefront of the media business. Our commercial printing and book divisions will also be the subject of a thorough scrutiny.

We have high hopes that our new joint venture in the Thaifin.com web site will prove successful, and we are well ahead in going further into the electronic publishing business with another new venture. These ventures, however, will be in the development phase and therefore are not expected to contribute to profit in the coming year.

There are some worrying factors on the horizon, however. Circulation sales have been disappointing, newsprint prices have been increasing, and there is relatively little scope for substantial further cost-saving measures. It will therefore be tough to repeat the performance of the year 2000 in the coming year.

A major question mark remains whether the economy in general will continue its sluggish recovery, which will have a substantial impact on our ability to achieve our targets for both circulation and advertising revenue.

The Managing Director, Mr. Alaster M. Smith, resigned at the end of his contract, effective 1st January 2001. His replacement, Mr. Pornlert Lattanan, joined the company on 1st February 2001 as the first Thai managing director of our company.

The Board, on the advice of the Audit Committee, has decided to recommend to shareholders a change of external auditors and wishes to express its gratefulness to our existing external auditors for their long years of devoted service.

We were glad to be able to reward the loyalty of our staff with enhanced salary increases and bonuses, and we would like to thank all of our staff for their fine efforts.

Finally, it gives the Board pleasure to propose to shareholders the payment of a final dividend of Baht 0.60 per share, plus a one-time special dividend of Baht 1.50 per share out of retained earnings.

MR. CHAVALIT THANACHANAN
Chairman



MR. PORNLERT LATTANAN