Hit by drought and sluggish economy, 58,000 borrowers

Chartchai Payuhanaveechai said 58,000 clients with a combined loan worth of Bt34 billion have so far applied for loan restructuring as the GSB-state owned bank allows a debt moratorium on the debtors’ principal for six months to two years. During this period, they are required to pay only interest payments.

As borrowers adversely affected by economic hardship have raised the bank’s non-performing loans (NPLs) up to 2 per cent of total loans from 1.4 per cent at the beginning of this year, he said. The bank wants to cap NPLs at no more than 2.08 per cent of total loans this year, he said.

GSB to lend partially CP syndicate loan of 80 billion.

The GSB will participate in Bt80 billion in syndicated loans to Thailand’s largest agribusiness conglomerate, Charoen Pokphand Group (CP). The GSB will lend about Bt 4-5 billion and detail could be finalized by the next few months, Chartchai said.

He said the GSB’s total loans in the first six months of this year were at Bt 1.8 trillion, or down Bt45.7 billion compared with the same period last year. Large corporations and state enterprises had turned to debt market instead of bank’s loan in the first half of this year, he said. He expects things turn around in the second half as many government investment project get off the ground. He expected new loans to big corporation and state enterprises would be worth about Bt20 to 30 billion in the next few months.

Lending to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and retail borrowers were up by Bt10 billion in the first half of this year, he said. The bank this year hopes to make new loans worth Bt100 billion, of which 90 per cent of total lending amounts to small borrowers and the rest to large ones. The GSB’s deposits were worth Bt 2.1 trillion up 3.41 per cent from the end of last year.