Thailand approves programmes to help the poor reduce debt

The Thai cabinet has approved a loan programme worth 15 billion THB (431.5 million USD), aimed at supporting street vendors and hawkers to alleviate informal debt.

Deputy Finance Minister Paopoom Rojanasakul said the weekly cabinet meeting on November 12 passed a resolution for the Government Savings Bank (GSB) to implement the loan scheme to increase liquidity and reduce debt for individuals, independent business owners, salaried employees, merchants, street vendors, hawkers and other service providers.

The loans can be used as working capital or to repay informal or high interest loans taken out for business purposes. The loan limit is 50,000 THB per person, with a fixed interest rate of 0.75% per month and a maximum repayment term of five years. Applications are open until December 30 next year.

The GSB will not request budget compensation from the government, choosing instead to reduce its profit margin. This loan is offered with more flexible terms than standard loans. More than 300,000 individuals are expected to benefit from the scheme.

The same day, the Thai cabinet also endorsed a Government Housing (GH) Bank loan programme for purchasing, building or repairing homes with a low interest rate of 3% for the first five years.

The loan budget for purchasing or building homes is set at 50 billion THB, with an additional 5 billion THB earmarked for repair loans.

Earlier in April, GH Bank launched a low-interest loan programme called "Happy Home" with a total loan amount of 20 billion THB. This scheme offered flexible lending conditions to help low-income individuals access mortgages, with a maximum loan amount of 3 million THB per person and a fixed interest rate of 3% for the first five years. However, this programme reached its loan limit./.

VNA