A view of Bangkok, the capital city of Thailand (Source: oneyoungworld.com)) Bangkok (VNA) – The Finance Ministry and the Bank of Thailand have taken drastic measures to curb the impact from the US-China trade war, amid a slowdown in the economy.
The ministry is pushing state enterprises to inject 130 billion THB (4.2 billion USD) into their investment projects by the end of this year, while the bank has surprised observers by cutting the policy interest rate by 25 basis points, the first cut in almost four years.
Finance Minister Uttama Savanaya said the ministry has told the State Enterprise Policy Office (Sepo) to speed up disbursement of an additional 130 billion THB of state enterprise investments to meet targets by the end of this year.
The office has also been instructed to work with other agencies to remove any hurdles to investment, Uttama added.
Meanwhile, the bank on August 7 followed the lead of other major central banks with its rate cut effort to spur the economy.
Thailand’s Monetary Policy Committee voted to cut the benchmark rate from 1.75 to 1.5 percent. The committee said the economy would grow more slowly than previously projected because a contraction in exports has been hurting domestic demand.
At a cabinet meeting on August 6, Thai Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak briefed participants on three major global issues that could adversely affect Thailand's economy – the China-US trade war, Hong Kong’s affairs which are affecting stock markets, and the depreciation of the yuan.-VNA
VNA
