Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has vowed to stimulate Thailand's economy in the first quarter of fiscal 2015 with a budget of 1.2 trillion baht.
Gen Prayut yesterday said after meeting with high-ranking officials that all state agencies must speed up disbursement of the outstanding budget for fiscal 2014, worth roughly 160 billion baht, within the first quarter of fiscal 2015, which begins next Wednesday.
The premier told a cabinet meeting on Tuesday that the government would accelerate spending, especially on small-scale projects, in a bid to boost the economy during the last quarter of this calendar year.
The fiscal-2015 budget amounts to 1.26 trillion baht — 160 billion in leftover budget from fiscal 2014 and 1.1 trillion to be allocated in the fiscal year to come.
Gen Prayut said the government was also committed to boosting exports, improving the quality of life for all people and promoting meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (Mice) activity.
Other policies of the new government include improving and amending laws to ease trade and investment as well as restructuring the tax code to enhance Thailand's competitiveness.
Some existing taxes remain relatively high compared with those of other countries.
"I do hope once we've solved our internal problems and improved what are deemed as obstacles, foreign investors will come to invest in Thailand and Asean," Gen Prayut said.
He reiterated that exports remained the key driver of the economy and pledged to recover Thailand's leadership in the global rice market.
With rice prices trending lower, the prime minister said the government needed prudent and appropriate management to carry out the sale of existing state rice stocks.
After halting rice sales to carry out nationwide stock inspections, the military regime on Aug 7 resumed sales of 167,000 tonnes of rice that the Yingluck Shinawatra government had stockpiled under the failed rice-pledging scheme.
The junta in July vowed to sell an average of 500,000 tonnes a month from state stocks and dispose of the existing 18-million-tonne surplus within three years through four channels — general auctions, government-to-government sales, direct sales and the Agricultural Futures Exchange of Thailand.
Thailand regained its position as the world's top rice exporter in July with shipments of 940,691 tonnes, up by nearly 40% year-on-year, on strong demand for white rice from African countries that usually imported parboiled rice.
Thailand in the first seven months of this year exported 5.62 million tonnes of rice, up by 55% year-on-year, fetching 90.9 billion baht, up 20.6%.
Benin ranked as the top importer of Thai rice with the purchase of 689,329 tonnes, up by 55.7% year-on-year, followed by China (338,170 tonnes, up 227%), Ivory Coast (325,558 tonnes, up 68.2%), Nigeria (321,955 tonnes, up 467%) and Cameroon (281,905 tonnes, up 190%).
Last month's export figure is estimated at 900,000 tonnes.
Thai rice prices have decreased to a highly competitive rate, and the government is negotiating with major export markets to purchase more rice.
Full-year rice exports are forecast at 10 million tonnes.