Public debt for big-ticket infrastructure projects in the next fiscal year will be 100 billion baht, 20-30 billion baht lower than previously expected, due to a delay in certain projects, says a Finance Ministry source.
On Thursday, Finance Minister Apisak Tantivorawong chaired the third Public Debt Management and Policy Committee meeting of 2018 to consider the public debt management plan for fiscal 2019, to be submitted to the cabinet for approval.
The source said that according to the debt management plan for fiscal 2019, government borrowing to invest in big-ticket infrastructure projects will be 20-30% lower than expected, totalling 100 billion baht.
Among those seeing delays, a key project is the investment scheme for the State Railway of Thailand to invest in double-track routes designed to increase speed and lower logistic costs.
The Public Debt Management Office (PDMO) predicts that public debt in fiscal 2019 will be 7.3 trillion baht, a 6.5% rise from expected public debt on Sept 30, 2018.
As of June 30, public debt amounted to 6.53 trillion baht, or 40.67% of GDP.
In the next fiscal year, public debt will likely be at 41-42% of GDP, which is the same level as at present, even though the figure is calculated in real terms. This is because there has been GDP growth.
The PDMO agreed with the Fiscal Policy Office's figure that there will be 4.5-5% GDP growth next year.
As for PDMO borrowing in the next fiscal year, 450 billion baht will be allocated to the government's investment projects and 200-300 billion baht to state enterprise projects.
The PDMO committee has planned to repay 2.5% of the public debt, in line with the committee on fiscal discipline's regulation that repayments must not be lower than 2.5%, nor higher than 3.5%, of the annual budget.
However, budget to repay the interest rate and the government's cost of borrowing must be allotted, which is expected to be done in the next fiscal year.