Govt to spend Bt100m on promoting 'One Shop One Community' project
The government will spend Bt100 million of the Bt1.32 billion allocated for curbing the rising cost of living on publicising its "One Shop One Community" scheme.
The bulk of the Bt1.32 billion – Bt500 million – will be for subsidising the logistics costs of Thailand Post in handling product distribution to participating stores around the country.
Commerce Minister Boonsong Teriyapirom said yesterday that the development of the project is expected to be finalised by the end of the month, so that the first outlet under the Raan Thook Jai (Satisfied Shop) brand can be introduced to the public in early April.
He said each shop would have |to absorb its own operating costs, while the government will provide Bt20,000 per outlet for decoration and setting up a trading under |the government’s platform.
The government will also spend Bt100 million on employing 1,000 officials to support the running |of the project from April to September. A further Bt9 million will be for the Internal Trade Department’s management of |the scheme.
The minister said that although the government required a |large budget for the project, it should reduce the amount consumers have to spend on essential goods to the tune of Bt6 billion a month.
This would mean Bt36 billion of saved consumer expenditure under the six-month project by offering goods at 20 per cent lower than normal market prices.
The government will have a central committee in place to monitor the project and stringently control budgetary spending, he added.
Meanwhile, Indonesia is planning to import at least 300,000 tonnes of rice from Thailand under a memorandum of understanding to import 1 million tonnes over the course of this year.
After meeting Boonsong yesterday, Indonesian Ambassador Lutfi Rauf said his country had a strong need for rice imported from Thailand to serve higher demand and the country’s strong economic growth.
He expects bilateral trade and investment will continue to increase thanks to closer cooperation under the Asean Economic Community.
Trade between Thailand and Indonesia grew from US$14 billion (Bt430 billion) in 2010 to $17 billion last year.
In a related matter, Thailand and India are expected to wrap |up a comprehensive bilateral |free-trade agreement in June, |so that trade, services and investment can be fully liberalised between the two nations by the end of the year.
