Thailand hopes to reach loan terms for 800-km joint venture rail project with China this month

[american12bthai]

OK EVERYONE, CHinas MAIN goal of this railway is for what??? DOES ANYONE KNOW... ANYONE!!! ANYONE!! ANYBODY!? Ill give you one hint, it has to do about retrieving resources from AFRICA. that means THailand will be a dumping ground of waste from both sides. But ... lets loooook reeeeeeaally close at this thing i call a MAP. compare burma, to thailand. ... if your were china where would you want this railway? .. the thai chinese of thailand are tring everythinhg they can to steal some of chinas railway project money. They have lied to the thai media about this trying to build hype, and they are still lying. THis RUMOR has raised the thai economy just a bit. so if it proves to be untrue. i expect prison or executions for the traitors. (oh this patriot talk is so fun)

[rubl]

So this is an off budget loan. Last I read, the constitutional court ruled against off budget loan of lesser amount.

You probably missed that the current government planned for seven yearly installments and have reservations in the National Budget. Look it up. Here the Fiscal 2015 National Budget, the Fiscal 2016 (2015/2016) may soon come in English.

http://www.bb.go.th/budget_book/e-Book2558/PDF/Budget-in-Brief-2015.pdf

Here all of the budget books available, only the one I indicated in English though.

http://www.bb.go.th/budget_book/e-Book2558/

My dear Rubi, please tell why would you find in the budget for the extra infrastructure funding when you already have a budget deficit. The infrastructure allocation in the 2015 budget is a yearly expenditures for repairs and maintenance and not the big 3 Trillion Baht project which will be fully funded by loans or bonds. You really think we have the budget to pay the humongous loan in 7 years plus interest when the yearly budget is only about 2.5 T Baht and all the allocations are vital resources for the country. Do your math.

your first sentence is a bit crummy, eric.

Anyway, the 'humongous' loan of 700 or 800 billion Baht for the NK-BKK-MTP dual track higer-speed rail link to open up the NorthEast is spread over seven or eight years. That's about the same yearly expenditure as the 107 billion Baht yearly repayment to BAAC for the coming seven years (the result of the wonderful 'self-financing' RPPS scam).

Now of course if you want to tell me the government should do nothing for the NorthEast but concentrate on Bangkok or cheap projects with more immediate 'showable' results that's fine. Your opinion, no need to be sound.

Edited October 27, 2015 by rubl

[Ricardo]

My dear Rubi, please tell why would you find in the budget for the extra infrastructure funding when you already have a budget deficit. The infrastructure allocation in the 2015 budget is a yearly expenditures for repairs and maintenance and not the big 3 Trillion Baht project which will be fully funded by loans or bonds. You really think we have the budget to pay the humongous loan in 7 years plus interest when the yearly budget is only about 2.5 T Baht and all the allocations are vital resources for the country. Do your math.

It's always a difficult decision, when you're running a budget-deficit (as Thailand has for years),but you want to carry-out major projects.

This went equally for the various rice-schemes in-the-past, or the free laptop-computers, or Skytrain-extensions or new airports, or re-financing IMF-loans.

I'm not sure how "vital" the new police-stations were/are, and the PM clearly doesn't view the new submarines as currently vital, I look at pointless local road-improvements (which will be ripped-up within a few years & done again) or signs congratulating the various governments on how much they're doing for the people, as less-than-vital. Not all the current "allocations are vital resources for the country" IMO.

But one can usually borrow to finance necessary infrastructure-spending, and it's quite reasonable to do so, IF the project will actually pay-back the cost for the country. That's the key point IMO, whether it's just a pork-barrel or populist-scheme, or is actually something the country needs.

One important test is whether the project is properly-costed, and the spending is transparent and debated in-public, that is a necessary stage whether it's PTP or the Dems or a military-government. I don't think we've yet seen any proper information on the Chinese railway, one can only hope that more will emerge, before the country is fully-committed to anything.

Then again, they can always 'do a Hopewell', if market/economic-conditions change, this being Thailand rather than sometimes-rational Farangland !

Edited October 27, 2015 by Ricardo

[Eric Loh]

My dear Rubi, please tell why would you find in the budget for the extra infrastructure funding when you already have a budget deficit. The infrastructure allocation in the 2015 budget is a yearly expenditures for repairs and maintenance and not the big 3 Trillion Baht project which will be fully funded by loans or bonds. You really think we have the budget to pay the humongous loan in 7 years plus interest when the yearly budget is only about 2.5 T Baht and all the allocations are vital resources for the country. Do your math.

It's always a difficult decision, when you're running a budget-deficit (as Thailand has for years),but you want to carry-out major projects.

This went equally for the various rice-schemes in-the-past, or the free laptop-computers, or Skytrain-extensions or new airports, or re-financing IMF-loans.

I'm not sure how "vital" the new police-stations were/are, and the PM clearly doesn't view the new submarines as currently vital, I look at pointless local road-improvements (which will be ripped-up within a few years & done again) or signs congratulating the various governments on how much they're doing for the people, as less-than-vital. Not all the current "allocations are vital resources for the country" IMO.

But one can usually borrow to finance necessary infrastructure-spending, and it's quite reasonable to do so, IF the project will actually pay-back the cost for the country. That's the key point IMO, whether it's just a pork-barrel or populist-scheme, or is actually something the country needs.

One important test is whether the project is properly-costed, and the spending is transparent and debated in-public, that is a necessary stage whether it's PTP or the Dems or a military-government. I don't think we've yet seen any proper information on the Chinese railway, one can only hope that more will emerge, before the country is fully-committed to anything.

Then again, they can always 'do a Hopewell', if market/economic-conditions change, this being Thailand rather than sometimes-rational Farangland !

The government, previous and current have already admitted that financing these infrastructure projects will be the biggest challenge. The budget from revenues collected will be not sufficient to pay for the projects. The funds will have to come from loans and public-private partnership. I believed Acts will be change to accommodate lifting the threshold for funding by the private corporations. Loans and off-budget expenditures are not bad words as long as there are accountability and transparency. We may not get this in the current junta government.