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The public debt rose by Bt36.95 billion to Bt6.05 trillion or 44.1 per cent of gross domestic product as of April 30.
Suwit Rojanavanich, director-general of the Public Debt Management Office, said yesterday that the rise was attributable to government debts, which increased by Bt42.53 billion to Bt4.47 trillion, while debts from others fell.
Reductions were seen in non-bank state-enterprise debts by Bt221.33 million to Bt1.04 trillion, financial state-enterprise debts by Bt1.12 billion to Bt524.40 billion and state-agency debts by Bt4.25 billion to Bt12.28 billion.
Of the total public debt, 94.1 per cent was local and the remaining 5.9 per cent external.
About 87.2 per cent of the public debt was long-term.

BMW GETS LARGER PARTS CENTRE

BMW Group Thailand has opened a Bt220-million parts-distribution centre in the Bangkok Free Trade Zone that – with 14,000 square metres – is almost three times as large as the old facility.
“This collaboration reflects the fruitful partnership between Thailand and BMW,” Deputy Industry Minister Pornchai Trakulwaranont said yesterday.
The complex will enhance BMW’s logistics efficiency with the capability of handling more than 40,000 different types of parts.
With support from its partners, the bigger facility will have an expanded parts-shipment capacity of 2,000 lines per day.

FINANCIAL LITERACY ABOVE AVERAGE

Thailand’s financial literacy ranks above the average of 17 Asian countries, while showing strengths in budgeting ability, emergency savings and financial products suitability, according to the latest “MasterCard Index of Financial Literacy” released in line with the World Economic Forum on Asean.
The score ranks on par with Malaysia, China and Sri Lanka and ahead of nine other countries, including the developed markets of South Korea and Japan.
Progress towards financial well-being is stagnant in most of the Asia-Pacific markets with the overall literacy score retreating by 1 point to 64, hitting a record low since the survey commenced in 2010.
Overall, the developed economies show largely unchanged scores while the emerging markets show the biggest decline in scores.