Bt6 bn set for financial infrastructure, digital economy

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Bt6 bn set for financial infrastructure, digital economy
ERICH PARPART
THE NATION

BANGKOK: -- THE CABINET yesterday approved proposals by the Information and Communications Technology Ministry and the Finance Ministry to use a combined budget of around Bt5 billion-Bt6 billion to fund financial infrastructure projects and national policies that are expected to become the foundations for Thailand’s digital economy.

The ICT Ministry's proposal was to use its fiscal budget and the leftover budget from the previous government's one-tablet-per-child policy to fund 24 initial investment projects worth Bt3.756 billion.

These include projects aimed at improving the competitiveness of domestic IT firms, reducing the digital divide and inequality, enhancing the government's Internet working process, increasing IT human resources, promoting e-commerce, and encouraging small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to use electronic invoices for business transactions and other purposes.

"There is no point giving out free tablets to children if there is no Wi-Fi for them to connect to the Internet," the deputy prime minister in charge of economic affairs, Somkid Jatusripitak, told reporters after the Cabinet meeting.

"The further promotion of| e-commerce has to be done as soon as possible, as the current number of online transactions via e-commerce between B [business] and C [consumer] in Thailand has already reached a value of around Bt2.1 trillion per year, which is the highest in Asean at the moment," ICT Minister Uttama Savanayana said.

The Finance Ministry's proposal, meanwhile, was to use the Revenue Department's fiscal budget of around Bt2 billion-Bt3 billion to complete the ministry's National E-Payment Master Plan.

The plan aims to change Thailand into a cashless society via encouraging citizens and businesses of all sizes to use and accept universal electronic cards as a means of financial transaction instead of using cash.

There are five main projects under the National E-Payment Master Plan, including the "Any ID" scheme, entailing the use of personal ID or a personal mobile number to acquire welfare and other government support; the promotion for SMEs to accept cashless transactions; and the setting up of electronic tax records.

The other two projects are the setting up of a government e-payment system to record personal data with the aim of increasing financial inclusion, and schemes to increase financial literary and electronic-transaction knowledge among the general public.

All projects relating to the National E-Payment Master Plan are expected to be undertaken during the current government.

The Any ID scheme is expected to be completed within six months, the expansion of national e-payment receivers by the second or third quarter of next year, and the complete registration of low-income earners within one year.

"It has been estimated that these measures could save the government around Bt75 billion per year -Bt35 billion in terms of banking and Bt45 billion in terms of financial and business transaction costs - from better targeting of government support and improvement in tax-collection efficiency," Finance Minister Apisak Tantivorawong said.

"This means that the estimated initial investment of around Bt2 billion to Bt3 billion should be well worth it," he added.

Meanwhile, the Cabinet also approved increasing the Government Savings Bank's 4-per-cent soft-loan policy for SMEs from the initial budget of Bt100 billion to Bt150 billion; the setting up of an initial operational budget of Bt10 billion for the Thailand Future Fund; and an increase of around Bt1.3 billion for the Thailand Village and Urban Revolving Fund to help low-income earners in Bangkok.

It also gave the nod to a Bt318.55-million increase in the loan budget to help 17,369 rubber farmers who have been hit by low rubber prices since the beginning of 2014.

The Government Savings Bank had used up around Bt80 billion of the original Bt100-billion budget for SME lending by the end of last month, yet there were still SMEs waiting for approval for loan support.

The Bt10-billion initial budget for the Thailand Future Fund was approved to support the 10 targeted future industries identified by the Industry Ministry in November.

The initial loan budget for rubber farmers was set at Bt8.5 billion for 850,000 farmers, but Bt8.242 billion has already been disbursed and there are still many in need a loan to support their liquidity, hence the additional funding agreed yesterday.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/business/Bt6-bn-set-for-financial-infrastructure-digital-ec-30275484.html


-- The Nation 2015-12-23