State-owned enterprises (SOEs) are expected to disburse around 300 billion baht from a total investment budget for fiscal 2021 worth 307 billion, says the State Enterprise Policy Office (Sepo).
Major investment projects for fiscal 2021 are mostly carryover investment projects from fiscal 2020, especially transport projects that were signed late last year such as civil work contracts on the high-speed train project and the Laem Chabang Port development project, said Sepo director-general Prapas Kong-Ied.
Budget disbursement for the first quarter of fiscal 2021, which started on Oct 1, 2020, registered an accumulative tally of 60.8 billion baht.
Sepo plans to follow up on accelerating fiscal disbursement and overall public expenditure, with a committee overseeing such expenditure scheduled to hold a meeting every two months to speed up the process.
The finance minister serves as the committee chairman.
Sepo intends to direct the disbursement of investment funds by meeting with ministries and SOEs that have large budgets and are experiencing problems with delayed disbursement, said Mr Prapas.
Some of the SOE investment projects experiencing delays in budget disbursement are the Bangkok-Nakhon Ratchasima high-speed railway phase 1, the Red Line mass transit system, a development project at Suvarnabhumi airport and the Rama III Expressway-Dao Khanong-Western Outer Ring Road project.
For fiscal 2020, SOEs had a combined investment budget disbursement of 254 billion baht, accounting for 81% of the total investment budget.
That disbursement rate exceeded the 78% logged in fiscal 2019.
If budget disbursement for the four listed SOE investment projects was not delayed, the disbursement rate for fiscal 2020 would have been 93%, according to Sepo.