The cabinet has approved a 100-billion-baht soft loan to be provided to financial institutions for relending to their customers, with a particular focus on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
According to Deputy Finance Minister Paopoom Rojanasakul, the cabinet meeting yesterday approved a measure to provide low-interest loans, or a soft loan scheme, worth 100 billion baht to be managed by the Government Savings Bank (GSB).
The loans would be distributed from GSB to various financial institutions to ensure the funds are widely available in the economic system.
Mr Paopoom said this loan amount is considered to be high compared to the period covering the pandemic, during which a 500-billion-baht soft loan measure was issued.
The soft loan from the GSB would be provided to commercial banks at a rate of 0.01%, allowing these banks to further lend from this soft loan to SMEs who are their customers.
The interest rate charged to the bank's customers under this scheme must not exceed 3.5% per year.
According to Mr Paopoom, this soft loan initiative by the GSB does not involve any subsidies from the Finance Ministry.
Instead, the bank accepts the financial cost burden, which is the difference in the interest rates, worth around 1 billion baht per year.
Pornchai Thiraveja, director-general of the Fiscal Policy Office (FPO) under the Finance Ministry, said this soft loan would be extended to each SME, not exceeding 40 million baht in total across all financial institutions. Interested SME operators can apply for loans until Dec 30, 2025.
Furthermore, from the allocated amount, the GSB can directly provide loans to entrepreneurs under the same criteria and conditions as financial institutions participating in the programme to support SMEs that are unable to access funds from the financial system.
Mr Pornchai said the programme aims to help SMEs affected by the prolonged economic slowdown.