Thailand unveils financial support for pandemic-hit businesses

[BANGKOK] Thailand unveiled a raft of measures to help small and medium businesses and the tourism industry, as a delay in full reopening to foreign visitors dims the prospects for recovery.

The Cabinet approved changes to a soft loan programme that will allow small and medium enterprises to access credit from its 250 billion baht (S$10.8 billion) corpus, while also clearing a plan that allows cash-starved companies to park their assets with lenders in exchange for credit, officials said Tuesday at a briefing in Bangkok.

The government will extend 100 billion baht for the asset warehousing program which will allow businesses such as hotel operators from having to liquidate distressed assets at firesale prices or go out of business because of their debts.

The steps to channel more credit to business come a day ahead of a central bank rate decision, with the Bank of Thailand expected to hold its benchmark rate at a record low of 0.5 per cent for a seventh straight meeting. The central bank sees tourism, which accounted for about one-fifth of gross domestic product pre-pandemic, as key to returning Southeast Asia's second-largest economy to growth after it shrank by 6.1 per cent last year.

BLOOMBERG