The cabinet met on Tuesday, March 26, 2013. Some of the decisions and acknowledgements are as follows:
The Cabinet acknowledged and approved the following proposal made by Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives:
1) Acknowledged the increase of capital of the International Rubber Consortium Limited (IRCo)
2) Approved IRCo’s increase of capital, based on the approval made by International Tripartite Rubber Council (ITRC) in its December 12, 20111 meeting, for the amount of 3.33 million US Dollars which is equal to 109.89 million Baht (exchange rate: US$1 = 33 Baht). Ministry of Finance, in its capacity as a stock holder of IRCo, was approved to make further request for budget allocation, year 2014, as procedure.
The cabinet approved the following proposal made by Ministry of Foreign Affairs:
1) Approved Draft of the Dushanbe Declaration for the 11th Asia Cooperation Dialogue (ACD) Ministerial Meeting.
2) Assigned Minister of Foreign Affairs or a representative to sign the draft Declaration
3) Should necessity arises to amend the draft Declaration in the unessential parts that will not result in the country’s loss of benefit, Ministry of Foreign Affair may proceed without further request for the Cabinet’s consideration.
Gist
The Republic of Tajikistan will host the 11th Asia Cooperation Dialogue (ACD) Ministerial Meeting on March 29, 2013 in the capital of Dushanbe. Main agenda of the meeting is sustainable development towards Asian prosperity, growth, and stability. During the meeting, draft of the Dushanbe Declaration will be deliberated and adopted. The Declaration is to acknowledge past progresses and performances, and determine future plans and mobilization under the ACD framework by calling for the green economic policy under the context of sustainable development. ACD member countries are urged to promote economic growth, social development, poverty reduction, environmental preservation, climate change and natural disaster mitigation strategies, food and energy security, as well as, to implement The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) commitment. Review of progress with regard to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will also be called for.
The cabinet acknowledged the Report on the preparation for the Republic of the Union of Myanmar’s Yadana gas field maintenance shutdown during April 5-14, 2013, as proposed by Ministry of Energy, to mitigate the effect of the shutdown and to maintain national energy security. Gist as follows:
1) Prepare the stock of reserved fuel oils and diesel oil to compensate for natural gas. Ministry of Energy has quickened to fill up EGAT’s and large scale private power plants’ reserve storages with fuel oils before the shutdown starts. At the same time, fuel oil and diesel delivery is carefully planned to ensure its sufficiency for electricity generation. The plan includes management of reserve oil after the shutdown duration to accommodate unexpected delay of the shutdown.
2) Power plants preparation- Ministry of Energy has ordered a drill to test the use of reserve oil for power generation, and for all power plants not to shut down for maintenance during the Yadana gas field maintenance shutdown. The Ministry also requested small power producers (SPP) to increase their power generation by 110MW.
3) Ministry of Energy has requested petroleum concession endorsees not to shut down for maintenance during the Yadana gas field maintenance shutdown.
4) Request for cooperation of the private sector to reduce electricity consumption during the Yadana gas field maintenance shutdown. Federation of Thai Industries (FTI) and the Industrial Estate Authority of Thailand (IEAT) both agreed to cooperate on the matter. As a result, electricity use of FTI members will be reduced by 408MW, and of IEAT members, by 83MW. Coupling with the reduction of electricity use by 4 large scale entrepreneurs who are currently under the electricity pricing plan of interruptible rate, that is, Thai Asahi Plant, 2 Siam City Cement Plants, and TPI Cement plant, electricity consumption will be reduced by 547MW in total.
As for the campaign to enhance public knowledge and understanding, energy savings measures in the public and government sector have been implemented and followed up in order to set an example to the general public. A drill implemented by Ministry of Energy on March 13, 2013 on annual electricity emergency plan provided clearer picture on the directions and problem solutions as well as the public relations to the people.
The aforementioned measures to curb Yadana gas field maintenance shutdown will increase reserved electricity generation to 1,424MW which is already at a sufficient and standard level.
--Cabinet Meeting (Yingluck Shinawatra) March 26, 2013--