Briefs

The Bank of Thailand’s soft-loan |facility has been nearly exhausted, |with only a little over Bt2 billion left for lending during the rest of the year.
Under the Bt300-billion soft-loan programme created to help address financial difficulties of individuals and small and medium-sized enterprises hit by last year’s flood disaster, the BOT contributed Bt210 billion while participating banks contributed the rest. Banks started to obtain funding from the facility in March.
Pongpen Ruengvirayudh, deputy governor for monetary stability, said |in a memorandum that of the central bank’s Bt210-billion budget, only Bt2.26 billion was left for distribution to participating banks for this quarter.
She advised participating banks to notify loan applicants that they may not receive as much financial |support as expected. Banks may need to re-lend payments from other borrowers under the scheme to new |borrowers.
As of September 30, the facility |had extended support to more than 520,000 flood victims in all provinces.

Prudential seeks takeovers
Prudential Life Assurance in Thailand is seeking opportunities to acquire life-insurance firms to enhance its business expansion here.
“Thailand has high growth potential as the number of policyholders is still low, and the company will invest further to serve business expansion for sustainable growth,” managing director Binayak Dutta said.
However, he declined to disclose the name of any potential company to be acquired.
Dutta said Prudential planned to grow in every business channel including agencies, bancassurance and telemarketing to ensure its sustainable growth in Thailand.
So far, the London-based life |insurer has invested in 13 countries and territories in the Asia-Pacific region. Among those markets, its |combined business value in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and India accounts for one-third of the |fast-growing region.
Previously, there were rumours |that Prudential was interested in purchasing Thanachart Life Assurance. However, it has denied this, saying it would be up to its head office to make the final decision on any acquisition.

Exim Bank backs TGPro
The Export and Import Bank of Thailand has provided working-capital loans worth Bt665 million to Thai-German Products for its expansion to supply more stainless-steel pipes and other products under its TGPro trademark to serve upcoming regional trade liberalisation.
Exim Bank president Kanit Sukonthaman and Rachata Leelaprachakul, managing director of TGPro, jointly signed an agreement |on Monday for a Bt665-million working-capital loan. The funds will be |used to facilitate expansion of TGPro’s production capacity for domestic sale and export in preparation for the Asean Economic Community in 2015.
Currently, 92 per cent of its products are sold domestically and the rest exported.

Wholesale clothing centre
Prommaharat Development Co has budgeted Bt3 billion to renovate |Merry King Rangsit mall as a wholesale clothing centre for northern Bangkok.
Prommaharat Development owns and manages Bobae Tower in the Klong Maha Nak area.
CEO Voravit Veerabawornpong said the company started renovating the Merry King project last month and planned to open part of in mid-2013, with full operation by the end of next year.
The project will have nine floors and a combined 80,000 square metres of space for about 770 wholesale clothing distributors.
“We target customers in northeastern Bangkok,” he said.
After the soft launch the project |last month, the company got bookings for about 15 per cent of the total, he said.

Cabinet approves reshuffle
The Cabinet yesterday approved a high-level reshuffle of officials in the Industry Ministry, with the secretary-general of the Board of Investment Office, Atchaka Sibunruang, moving into the post of deputy permanent secretary of the ministry.
The Cabinet also approved the appointment of Udom Wongvivatchai, inspector-general of the ministry, to head the BOI as Atchaka’s replacement.