Thai Govt urged to speedily approve 2-trillion-baht loan bill

BANGKOK, September 5 (TNA) - The government is urged to accelerate implementations of transport infrastructure projects worth two trillion baht as the projects would benefit Thailand’s economy in the next five to 10 years. Olarn Chaipravat, president of Thailand Trade Representative suggested the House of Representatives to approve the loan bill for sponsoring the mega transportation projects the soonest. Olarn said Thailand has concluded a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) on agricultural products such as rice with China but its selling price is still higher than in Thailand by between 50-60 per cent due to high transportation costs. Despite the high prices of Thai goods, there is still a great demand by Chinese, he said. The Thai government, therefore, needs to improve road transportation facilities so that costs to transport goods to southern China could be reduced. The private sector, meanwhile, has to adjust and lay out plans on goods transportation because Thailand would in the future export more goods to China and India, he said. Meanwhile, in an attempt to reduce the government stockpile of natural rubber, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra will lead a delegation to negotiate with the Chinese government to buy more than one million tonnes of rubber. Yingluck is also expected to request Chinese investors to set up rubber processing plants in Thailand, aimed at boosting rubber consumption in the kingdom. In another development, Nopporn Thepsitha, president of Thai National Shippers’ Council, said his Council has projected that Thailand’s exports in 2013 would sustain growth of about three per cent on the condition that average monthly export must be 21.8 million U.S. dollars. Nopporn suggested that the Thai government should boost the country’s exports with fellow member countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and also the cross-border trade. (TNA)