The Cabinet approved a budget worth 60 billion baht for the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives, or BAAC, to purchase rice from farmers and provide credit to rice mills to improve their liquidity.
The Cabinet also approved a budget worth 47 billion baht for the construction of the underground train's extension and for buying locomotives for the State Railway of Thailand.
The Cabinet approved a 60-billion-baht budget for the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives to carry out three plans in a bid to maintain rice prices.
The BAAC will provide credit worth 20 billion baht for the Public Warehouse Organization and the Marketing Organization for Farmers to buy two million tons of rice form farmers at the reference price as announced by the Commerce Ministry to stabilize rice prices under the income-guarantee project for farmers.
The BAAC will also provide participating rice mills, which buy rice from farmers at the reference price, with credit worth a total of 20 billion baht.
The participating rice mills will be able to take out credit with a 2.75 interest rate, instead of the usual rate of 4.75 per cent, as the government will subsidize by paying 2 per cent interest rate for them.
The third effort by BAAC to keep rice price from dropping is a pledge program.
The farmers who urgently needs cash can pledge their future products with BAAC instead of selling their rice to rice mills during this time because rice with high moisture commands a low price.
The Cabinet also approved a framework to borrow from foreign sources in accordance with the public debt management plan for fiscal year 2010.
It has been decided that funds for six projects worth a combined 1.353 US dollars, or 47.3 billion baht, will come from foreign borrowings.
A loan worth 19.7 billon baht from the Japanese government will go to the construction of the extension line for the Mass Rapid Transit Authority's underground train from Bang Sue to Bang Yai.
1.05 billion baht of the loans will go toward a project to procure seven diesel-electric-propelled locomotives by the State Railway of Thailand. 700 million baht will go to SRT's cargo carriage procurement plan.
The biggest part from the total sum, worth 23.2 billion baht, will be spent on 3G network development project by the TOT Public Company.
The Cabinet proposed that a public hearing on these projects must be conducted first to gather suggestions from the public and concerned parties before drafting loan contracts and related documents of these projects which will be presented at a parliamentary assembly for approval.
The Cabinet also tasked the Finance Ministry with reserving Thailand's right to receive financial support worth 10 billion baht from the World Bank, which will be used to promote and develop low-carbon technology.
Source: TANN
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