The cabinet on Tuesday approved measures to promote biodegradable plastic packaging, offering a tax deduction on expenses from corporate income.
According to Nathporn Chatusripitak, a spokesman for Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak, companies will be allowed to claim deductions of up to 1.25 times for expenses if they buy biodegradable plastic packaging between January this year and Dec 31, 2021.
The tax measures are expected to attract 10% of existing plastics entrepreneurs to change production to bioplastics, while the Finance Ministry projects losing some 1.3 billion baht worth of income a year.
Mr Nathporn said the measure will help reduce the state's burden of reducing and managing plastic waste.
The National Economic and Social Development Council advised the Finance and Industry ministries to launch campaigns to promote the latest measures.
According to Mr Nathporn, the cabinet on Tuesday also approved exempting from personal income tax the income taxpayers receive from the savings lottery interest of the Government Housing Bank (GH Bank), payable from Aug 1, 2019 to July 30, 2022.
He said GH Bank targets offering 203 billion baht worth of loans in 2019, focusing on low- and medium-income earners.
The government is expected to lose about 1 billion baht worth of revenue from the exemption of such income tax.
Mr Nathporn said the cabinet on Tuesday also approved a proposal of the Finance Ministry to extend for another two years the tax measures for large-scale companies that help small and medium-sized enterprises to Dec 31, 2020 from the expiry date of Dec 31, 2018.
In a related development, France-based utility company Suez SA will build a plastics recycling plant in Thailand to turn waste plastics into circular polymers.
The new facility will be the company's first-ever plastics recycling project in Asia. The plant is intended to be a model for the rest of Southeast Asia.
The plant is in Bang Phli, Samut Prakan. Construction work for a building area of 14,000 square metres is expected to be completed by mid-2020.
This facility will convert 30,000 tonnes a year of collected low-density polyethylene (LDPE) and linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) plastic film waste in the country.
The recycling process will convert the plastic waste into high-quality post-consumer recycled plastic (PCR).
This PCR will be used to make products for a circular economy.