The cabinet meeting on Tuesday 8, September 2009 has come to the following decision:
The cabinet agreed in principle the draft of ministry regulation on fee exemption for factories located in the provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani, and Yala as the Ministry of Industry has proposed. The draft has been forwarded to the Council of State to rule on the legality, after which the draft will carry on. In summary, the draft will exempt all kinds of fee collected under the 1992 Factory Act, from 2010 to 2014, for the operators of both current and prospective factories in Narathiwat, Pattani, and Yala provinces.
The cabinet assigned the Government Lottery Office to supervise the issue of special charity lottery for the establishment of the fund for orphans under the care of the Thai Red Cross Society Children Home Foundation. The Government Lottery Office will be responsible for all 15 rounds of the special lottery, issuing 4 million lottery tickets for each round. The price for one lottery ticket is set at 40 Baht, with 3% of the total sale going to the Government Lottery Office as the Ministry of Finance has proposed.
According the to Ministry of Finance's proposal, the Cabinet considered and approved the issue of the lottery for promotion and development of the disabled's quality of life. The cabinet resolution approved 10 rounds of charity lottery for promotion and development of the disabled's quality of life, of which 8 million lottery tickets will be issued for each round, or 80 million lottery tickets in total. The Cabinet also assigned the Government Lottery Office as the issuer, the distributor, and the awardee. In addition, the taxes normally collected from lottery sellers will be exempt, and the winner will be entitled for the income tax reduction as well as discounted 0.5% gambling tax.
Following the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment's proposal, the cabinet agreed in principle on the appointment of Climate Change Officer (CCO).
The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment reported that the climate change is a global-level problem that affects the environment and the livelihood of living organism. The world community has realized the importance of solving the aforementioned problem, and by collectively pursuing with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change(UNFCCC) since 1994, countries are divided into groups according to the common but differentiated responsibilities in emitting greenhouse gas. The first group is the Annex I Countries which are developed nations whereas the second group, Non-Annex I Countries, is a group of developing countries. Then in 1995, the Kyoto Protocol(KP) was established under the UNFCCC. Thailand, as a developing nation in the Non-Annex I Countries, ratified the UNFCCC on December 28, 1994 and the KP on August 28, 1995. Thailand has to prepare its policies and practical mechanisms for the integration of several agencies in order to be prepared to prevent or deal with the problem as it happens. In this regard, the appointment of Climate Change Officer will increase the efficiency of systematic co-operations between ministries and agencies; thus, the mechanism for integrated operations will be smoother, which will eventually maximise the effectiveness of climate change-related operations.
As the Ministry of Commerce has proposed, the cabinet approved the signing of memorandum of understanding(MOU) between the governments of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the government of the People's Republic of China to cooperate on intellectual property. The MOU will be presented by the cabinet to the National Assembly for approval. After the MOU is passed by the Parliament, the cabinet has assigned the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to send notification to other multilateral countries that Thailand has completed its internal process in order to have the memorandum of understanding takes effect.
This memorandum of understanding covers the co-operations on intellectual property, such as, the establishment of mechanisms for meetings of member countries' intellectual property chief, intellectual property protection issues, information and experience exchange on inspection requests, and data collection.
The cabinet approved, upon the Ministry of Public health's proposal, the draft of Design Arrangement [China-Thailand Traditional Medical Center Project] and granted district 7's ministerial government inspector the authority to sign it. The ministry of Public Health accepted in principle the supporting budget of 4.7 million Chinese Yuan for the construction of the People's Republic of China's Government's China-Thai Traditional Medicine Center Project in Phuket, whose designing plan was approved by both the People's Republic of China and the Thai Ministry of Public Health.
--Cabinet Meeting (Abhisit Vejjajiva) September 8, 2009--