BANGKOK, Jan 26 (Bernama) — In an effort to boost the domestic use of its rubber, the Thai government announced today it will disburse 15 billion baht (RM1.78 billion) in soft loans to the country’s rubber processing manufacturers.
Government spokesman Col Sansern Kaewkamnerd said the soft loans were for the private sector’s downstream business such as manufacturing of gloves, tyres or rubber products for the engineering sector.
“The soft loans will be for business, manufacturing expansion as well as to cover land acquisition. They are for projects in the period between 2016 and 2026.
“The government will support three per cent of the total interest rate from six commercial banks,” he told the media after the weekly cabinet meeting here, Tuesday.
Nevertheless, he said the government had attached conditions before approving the soft loans, one of which was that the rubber manufacturers needed to use four tonnes of rubber per year for a million baht (RM119,000) in soft loan.
On the government’s rubber-buying programme which officially kicked-off yesterday, he said it only bought 70.6 tonnes of rubber from farmers due to several factors such as the rainy season and higher purchase price set by the middle men.
The middle men, said Sansern, set the price at 42 baht (RM4.90) per kilogramme from the rubber farmers, which is near the 45 baht per kilogramme under the government’s initiated rubber buying programme.
— BERNAMA
