The Thai-Swedish Chamber of Commerce in collaboration with Scandinavian Publishing Co., Ltd. recently released an all new magazine-cum-directory to replace the chamber’s 11-year-old STEP Magazine and TSCC Year Book.
“The debut of the Thai Sweden Review is both timely and fitting, as the TSCC is working hard to develop a more commercial oriented chamber with a mission to strengthen business relations between our two countries,” says TSCC President, Mr. Roland G. Svensson.
The new semi-annual publication, Thai Sweden Review, boasts a new benchmark for a chamber publication in Thailand in terms of content and design concepts, frequency and printing quality.
“Of course, the Thai Sweden Review not only focuses on business-related issues, but also comes packed with news, reviews and feature stories about everyday life in Thailand and Sweden,” Mr. Svensson adds.
In addition to a round-up on what has taken place in the Thai-Swedish community during the six month before each issue is released, Thai Sweden Review will be juicier than the chamber’s previous publications. Topics of interests will take turn to make a focus on the Round Table section while the interviews will no longer be restricted to the circle of business and trade, but will also include any prominent personalities in the Thai-Swedish community. Even reviews on products and services available in the market can be found on the magazine.
These are all laid out in a clean and well designed magazine format, which is a radical improvement over the newsletter look of STEP Magazine.
Familiar writers like Christer Nilsson and Gregers Moller are still with the chamber to deliver insight stories within the Swedish and Scandinavian circle. Many contributors – Mia Hansson, Matthew Smith, Scott Murrey and Helene Benno to name a few – have been added to offer a variety of styles and issues.
In the debut issue, the magazine gives a reminiscence of TSCC’s services since the start as Thai Swedish Business Association in February 1989. The State Visit to Thailand by Their Majesties King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia of Sweden in February this year was also featured.
The round table focuses on a topic that matches perfectly to the launch of the magazine – starting up in Thailand. Highlights also include, among others, interviews with two prominent persons – Swedish Eva Sophonpanich, who was born, raised, and has spent most parts of her life so far and now still lives in Thailand; and Sitthichai Olankul, the Thai executive who now leads AstraZeneca in Thailand.
In addition, TSCC membership directory has now been merged into this new magazine, meaning updates of members will be printed twice a year instead of only once.
Financing the new publication has been possible through the advertisements inserted and sold by Marketing Director Mr. Finn Balslev of Scandinavian Publishing. Mr. Balslev was also Marketing Director on the previous publication, and most of the advertisments are supportive Swedish companies in Thailand and institutions offering services and goods to the Swedish community in Thailand.
The introduction of the Thai Sweden Review is part of the TSCC re-branding programme launched this year, which also include the redesign of TSCC logo and the launch of the chamber’s ASP-based website.
The Thai Sweden Review is designed, produced and distributed for TSCC twice a year by Scandinavian Publishing, a sister company of Scand-Media Corp. Ltd. who had produced the STEP Magazine and the year book for TSCC since 1994 until the last issues of the two publications last year.
