A view of Bangkok, the capital city of Thailand (Source: oneyoungworld.com))Bangkok(VNA) – The Finance Ministry and the Bank of Thailand have taken drasticmeasures to curb the impact from the US-China trade war, amid a slowdown in theeconomy.
The ministry is pushingstate enterprises to inject 130 billion THB (4.2 billion USD) into their investmentprojects by the end of this year, while the bank has surprised observers bycutting the policy interest rate by 25 basis points, the first cut in almostfour years.
Finance MinisterUttama Savanaya said the ministry has told the State Enterprise Policy Office(Sepo) to speed up disbursement of an additional 130 billion THB of stateenterprise investments to meet targets by the end of this year.
The office has alsobeen instructed to work with other agencies to remove any hurdles toinvestment, Uttama added.
Meanwhile, the bank onAugust 7 followed the lead of other major central banks with its rate cuteffort to spur the economy.
Thailand’s MonetaryPolicy Committee voted to cut the benchmark rate from 1.75 to 1.5 percent. Thecommittee said the economy would grow more slowly than previously projectedbecause a contraction in exports has been hurting domestic demand.
At a cabinet meetingon August 6, Thai Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak briefed participantson 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
