SINGAPORE Telecommunications' investment strategy in Asia will not be affected by political uncertainty in Thailand following a military coup in the kingdom, SingTel's new CEO has revealed.

Chua Sock Koong, named chief executive officer to succeed incumbent Lee Hsien Yang in April 2007, said Southeast Asia's biggest telecoms firm has always factored in the risks associated with Thailand and other emerging markets.

The firm's investment strategy "certainly has not changed," Chua, 49, said at a news conference.

"The incident in Thailand, those kind of risks, is something that we are always conscious of when we make investments overseas so the incident in Thailand is not going to change our investment approach," she said.

"We will continue to make overseas investments."

Chua said SingTel's Thai mobile associate, Advanced Info Service (AIS), is expected to turn in a strong performance even though the Thai economy may suffer some impact from Tuesday night's bloodless coup against Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

"The developments in Thailand would clearly have an impact on the economy and on the businesses," Chua said.

"We are closely monitoring the situation but we believe that AIS is fundamentally a very strong company and we remain confident in its performance," she said.

SingTel holds a 21.4 percent stake in AIS, the largest mobile communications operator in Thailand, with a market share of 52 percent.

The telco's regional mobile phone user base exceeded 92 million at the end of June and the company's growth in recent years has been largely driven by its international business, Chua has said previously.

SingTel also has stakes in other Southeast Asian mobile operators including Telkomsel of Indonesia, Globe Telecom in the Philippines and India's Bharti Group.

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