The government plans to increase its investment budget by 90 billion baht in fiscal 2022, in compliance with a law related to state financial and fiscal discipline, says Dechapiwat Na Songkhla, director of the Budget Bureau.
The House of Representatives is scrutinising the fiscal 2022 budget, which has an expenditure budget of 3.1 trillion baht, accounting for 17.9% of GDP.
The bill projects revenue worth 2.4 trillion baht, which means the government would need to borrow 700 billion baht to offset the deficit.
However, the bill set the investment budget at only 624 billion baht, lower than the deficit of 700 billion. This means the government would have to raise the investment budget to more than 700 billion baht to comply with the 2018 law governing state financial and fiscal discipline.
According to Article 20 of the law, the investment budget must not be less than the deficit amount when making a state annual budget.
Mr Dechapiwat said of the 90 billion baht the government plans to add to the 2022 expenditure budget, 50-60 billion is from the 500-billion-baht emergency loan decree.
The remainder comes from the 2022 investment budget of state agencies and enterprises.
Of this planned 90-billion-baht investment budget, 60 billion is earmarked for the Transport Ministry's investment in infrastructure.