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Cooperation urged on exports

The Thai National Shippers’ Council has urged the public and private sectors to join forces to achieve the export-growth target.

Several public and private agencies forecast a 5-per-cent rise in outbound shipments to US$225.75 billion, or $18.81 billion a month, while the TNSC estimates this year’s total at $219.3 billion or $18.27 billion a month, Napporn Thepsithar, chairman of the council, said yesterday.

The Bank of Thailand projects no growth from $215 billion last year.

Exports were expected to see a contraction of at least 5.5 per cent last year.

Money laundering targeted

The Cabinet yesterday approved the Finance Ministry’s proposal to introduce the Exchange Control Act to comply with the Financial Action Task Force’s money-laundering standard. Thailand is one of the FATF’s member states.

According to the agreement with FATF, the Kingdom is expected to complete the amendment of financial laws related to money-laundering that currently do not meet the standard by May before the result from the FATF’s assessment is announced in November.

The Cabinet also approved the Finance Ministry’s two emergency decrees to waive the special purpose tax and the reduction of transfer fee from 2 per cent to 0.01 per cent for the transfer of assets from Thai Asset Management Corporation to lower the state’s financial burden.

The exemption and reduction will mean that the state can save Bt500 million in debt-management costs, while the sale of the remaining Bt3 billion debts will lower the state’s losses.

GSB NPLs hit 2 per cent

The Government Savings Bank reported its non-performing loans rising from an average of 1.6 per cent of outstanding loans at the end of 2014 to 2 per cent at the end of 2015.

This follows the bank’s provision of loans to support the government’s policies. However, the bank forecasts interest rates increasing by 0.2-0.5 percentage point in the second half of this year, Chatchai Payuhanaveechai, president and CEO, said yesterday. The bank’s new loans recorded growth of 6.8 per cent last year.