The Federation of Thai Industries (FTI) is encouraging enterpreneurs to adopt the bio-, circular and green (BCG) economic model to better adjust themselves in the post-pandemic era as the world is likely to be dominated by digital technology and environmental concerns.
BCG promotes economic sustainability by urging companies to make wise use of resources to add value to products, with little or no impact on the environment.
To achieve the BCG goal, businesses including small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) must come up with innovations to improve their factory operations.
But SMEs usually find it hard to adopt technological development, so the FTI is helping them through financial assistance, FTI chairman Supant Mongkolsuthree said at the annual FTI ordinary meeting yesterday.
The FTI's Innovation Institute for Industry is preparing to raise 1-2 billion baht from large companies and the government in order to set up a fund to help SMEs gain better access to innovative development, he said.
The federation also plans to promote and showcase the potential of Thai industries at the FTI Expo, scheduled to be organised on Feb 2-6 next year in Chiang Mai.
The event is expected to help boost the economy as it will facilitate business negotiations, worth around 1 billion baht, said Mr Supant.
"The expo will be in line with the government's policy to reopen Thailand," he said.
"Industrial products in 11 clusters will be put on show and we plan to organise the event under a BCG economic model theme."
Mr Supant said the FTI will also showcase products under the Made-in-Thailand campaign, which supports use of local products in the government's infrastructure development and other investment projects.
Meanwhile, Bank of Thailand (BoT) governor Sethaput Suthiwartnarueput said at the same FTI meeting that the BoT is ready to adjust measures or launch additional measures to help households and SMEs better tackle the existing debt and access new loans amid the prolonged Covid-19 pandemic.
The measures would help borrowers overcome the impact of the pandemic and recover from the crisis, he added.
The central bank recently adjusted measures launched through the BoT's soft loan scheme to aid borrowers, especially individuals and SMEs, hit hard by the outbreak.
However, loan accessibility is still a key pain point for the economy. Therefore, the BoT is ready to implement additional measures to help borrowers, Mr Sethaput added.
The BoT has also relaxed regulations for non-performing loan classification and loan-loss provision to support loan growth of the banking industry.
As of July, the commercial banking sector's new loans expanded by 500 billion baht or 4%, on a year-on-year basis.
The growth rate is close to the pre-Covid-19 level, despite the downturn, with the BoT's assumption that GDP growth would be below 1% this year.