The Bank of Thailand (BOT) announced two emergency decrees on Thursday night that will allow the central bank to come up with measures to help small and medium enterprises (SMEs) from the impact of the coronavirus outbreak.
These measures include reducing debt burden, increasing liquidity and supporting debt restructuring programs for SMEs. The decree is meant to prevent the lack of liquidity and defaulting.
The cabinet had earlier approved the BOT’s proposal for a soft loan budget worth 500 billion baht. One of the decree allows the BOT to give out soft loans to financial institutions at a rate of 0.01 per cent and the institutions can then lend it to SMEs at a low interest rate of no more than 2 per cent. The limit was set at no more than 500 million baht per loan.
Another emergency decree provides the BOT with the power to order financial institutions to postpone principal and interest rate payments for SMEs. The initial plan is to postpone these payments for six months for SMEs that took out a loan less than 100 million baht.
The Government Savings Bank announced on Thursday that they have ran out of budget for its soft loan scheme worth 150 billion baht.
The BOT’s emergency decrees are part of the government’s third economic relief package worth 1.9 trillion baht that was launched in April.
