BANGKOK (NNT) - Restaurants, especially those that provide table service for a full appreciation of the dining experience, have welcomed the government’s latest assistance measures.

 

Having received a petition filed by the Thai Restaurant Association, asking for the government’s support as the third COVID-19 wave continues to plague restaurants businesses, the government has now collaborated with five state run financial institutions to offer soft loans, so that restaurant owners are able to gain access to cash to improve liquidity and retain employment levels, until the situation recovers as the country continues to expedite the vaccination process.

 

Chumpol Jangprai, Vice President, Thai Restaurant Association said

 

"Restaurant owners who have registered their business with the Ministry of Commerce are eligible to apply for this special loan at any of five financial institutions, namely the SME D Bank, Krungthai Bank, the Government Savings Bank, the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives, and the Thai Credit Guarantee Corporation from now until June 20th. The banks are charging a 3.99 percent annual credit rate, with each client able to request a maximum credit limit of 500,000 baht, with a 1-year period of grace and a maximum payback term of 5 years."

 

Earlier this month, Food Panda, the kingdom’s major food delivery platform reported that about 25,000 restaurants that worked to supply a food service using its platform, have closed either temporarily or permanently. The app also revealed that during the third wave, it saw only one week of increased demand after the government ordered the lockdown, but demand had since plummeted and continues to remain low. This information also coincides with national statistics that show that sales of groceries and demand for cooking utensils doubled as people are willing to cook at home more to save on costs.

 

Additionally, the Ministry of Commerce has also been in talks with various food delivery service providers to help remedy the situation. Now, major providers namely Grab, Foodpanda, LINE Man, and Gojek have resolved to lower their Gross Profit (GP) margin collected from the vendors from 30-35% down to 25% while, emerging provider ‘Robinhood’ has decided to stop collecting GP payments from vendors on the platform for the time being.

 

-- © Copyright NNT 2021-06-13

 

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It would be much better to let them serve alcohol with meals rather than push them further into debt.

 

 

 

 

Offering additional debt to already overburdened businesses is merely postponing their inevitable demise. This government is utterly devoid of knowledge of how businesses actually run and their so called assistance is nothing more than a poisoned chalice.

All bar one restaurant near us, Khlong Toei, are pretty much back to normal and serve alcohol.