Ministry starts rehab scheme
The flood crisis is estimated to have affected about 240,000 small and medium-sized enterprises employing 670,000 people in 32 provinces, reducing the SME sector's gross domestic product by Bt24 billion per month, according to the Office of Small and Med
The Industry Ministry yesterday announced the registration of flood-affected SMEs that want the government to help rehabilitate their businesses.
The ministry approved the establishment of a rehabilitation committee with a budget of Bt500 million for this purpose.
Osmep director Yuthasak Supasorn said the flood-affected SMEs surveyed by his office were in the North and Central regions, and many of them began to face problems a few months ago.
About 58,000 of the estimated 240,000 affected enterprises are in the industrial sector.
Industries that have been hit the most are food and beverages, and textiles, with 15,000 flood-hit enterprises each.
About 170,000 enterprises in the retail and logistics sectors have also been hit, and a combined 19,000 hotels and restaurants are also victims of the floods.
Yuthasak said that before the floods hit the Kingdom, he had held discussions with Japanese government officials about the relocation of Japanese investors to Thailand to avoid risk from natural disasters in their home country. However, any plans to do so have now been suspended because of the Thai flood situation.
Witoon Simachokedee, permanent secretary of the Industry Ministry, said the ministry had assessed the impact with businesses outside industrial estates and found that there were about 19,000 enterprises with combined damage of Bt240 billion. About half of them are expected to be SMEs.
He said that besides setting up a committee to help SMEs rehabilitate their businesses, the ministry had opened registration through many agencies under its auspices for those SMEs that need help.
It will screen the most affected businesses down to 5,000 enterprises, all of which will be provided with advice and assistance from the ministry and fast-track processing if they want to apply for loans.
The assistance on offer includes business planning, financial planning, soft loans and the repair of machinery and buildings. The ministry is also asking for assistance from educational institutions and vocational schools to help repair damaged machines.
Witoon said the 5,000 qualifying businesses would then be whittled down to 2,500 enterprises that have been the most severely damaged as a result of the floods. They will be provided with in-depth assistance.
He added that the ministry expected all 5,000 SMEs eligible for the assistance to start rehabilitating their businesses in January, with the work completed by April.
The government has approved the provision of soft loans totalling Bt210 billion for flood-hit businesses. These will be provided by both state-owned and commercial banks with a fixed interest rate of 3 per cent per annum for three years.
SMEs outside flood-damaged industrial estates are also eligible to access the loan scheme.
