The cabinet meeting on 21 October 2008 has come to the following solutions as follows;
— Approval of 127,168,700 baht of the central budget of 2008 as the reserved payment or necessary budget for 498 projects to renovate the public facility damaged by flood problem in 17 provinces as proposed by Ministry of Interior.
— Approval the Organizing Workshop to Accelerate the Government Economic Policy at the Grass root level on 29 October 2008 as purposed by Deputy Prime Minister Olarn Chaipravat . The Workshop is aimed not only at stimulating the economic at the grass root level but also at building the internal capacity. As many countries including Thailand have affected by the world economic crisis the following 3 projects are presented as the core government projects
1) Building Village and Urban Committee Fund’s Capacity and Good Governance
2) Allocating the budget in accordance with the population size of the village and urban community
3) Building OTOP’s Capacity and Management The Government, meanwhile, will expedite the payment and budget approved by the Parliament in order to stimulate the internal economic especially in provincial area.
— Acknowledgement the 2nd progress report on 6 Measures 6 Months Project to Get Through the Economic Crisis as presented by the Office of the National Economic and Social Development Board. In this regards, the cabinet agreed to complete the project in 6 months and assigned Mr. Olarn Chaipravat, Deputy Prime Minister, to be in charged the 6 Measures 6 Months Project. Ministry of Energy, meanwhile, will consider the amendment of the money collection for LPG Fund in line with the world situation. Ministry of Interior will reconsider the level of water usage. Ministry of Finance and Budget Bureau are urged to expedite the payment for the state enterprises concerned.
- According to the cabinet meeting, the implementation is mainly focusing on easing the people burden in paying utility and transportation cost during the period of economic slowdown. However, the constant falling of oil price helps decreasing the inflation from 9.2 % in July to 6.4 % in August and 6.0 % in September respectively. The progress of 6 Measures 6 Months Project is following
- Reduce Excise Oil Tax : the implementation which has started since 25 July 2008 helps cutting down the oil price both benzene and gasohol 95.
- Freeze the price of LPG in household section for 6 months. However, the increasing LPG price in transportation and industry section is under the Ministry of Energy consideration.
- Reduce the public water payment in household. The measure is covered approximately 3.24 million people
- Reduce the electricity payment. The condition of measure is covered approximately 10.75 households nationwide
- Reduce the public transportation payment. The measure is providing 800 bus services in 73 routes without charge throughout Bangkok metropolitan and provinces nearby. There are 431,437 passengers per day.
- Reduce the third train payment. The measure is covered 164 routes from north, east, northeast and south route.
--Cabinet Meeting (Somchai Wongsawat) October 21, 2008--