SME MASTER PLAN
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The Office of SMEs Promotion (Osmep) will soon propose the master plan No 4 for small and medium-sized enterprises to its board of directors ahead of its planned implementation next year.
Sontirat Sontjirawong, adviser to the Minister of Industry, said the plan would soon be proposed at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha.
Initially, the plan aims to create new business operators with high valued added, upgrade SMEs technology and innovation, enhance entrepreneurship and promote business networks and clusters.
The plan also intends to strengthen the foundation of enterprises and promote market access and internationalisation in order to increase SMEs’ income contribution to Thailand’s gross domestic product to more than 50 per cent by 2021. The current contribution is 42.3 per cent.
SMEs’ GDP is expected to increase up to 5.5 per cent this year. In the first quarter it rose |5.1 per cent.
Osmep encourages SMEs to drive their business with innovation, while adjusting so the sector can become a manufacturing network for the country’s 10 future industries, create value-added cultural products and successful designs for products and packaging.
Osmep is studying the establishment of a new fund to support SMEs, particularly those with business potential, to gain credit access for business expansions.
KBANK LAUNCHES PROMPTPAY
About one million of Kasikornbank’s 12.5 million customers signed up to use the bank’s PromptPay service over the three days that followed Friday’s commencement of the pre-registration period for the electronic-money transfer system, said the bank’s president Predee Daochai.
The pre-registration period runs until July 14. After that period, registration will officially begin.
Through PromptPay consumers can link their deposit accounts with citizen ID or a mobile phone via the bank’s channels, such as its branches, ATMs, online and mobile banking.
NEW THAI AIRASIA ROUTE
Thai AirAsia has begun daily flights from Don Mueang Airport to Wattay International Airport in Vientiane.
Thai AirAsia CEO Tassapon Bijleveld said the new route would help stimulate tourism and investment in Vientiane and build on the already strong relationship between Laos and Thailand while offering more opportunities for the two neighbours to strengthen their ties.
AirAsia serves two other routes from Laos, with AirAsia Bhd flying from Vientiane to Kuala Lumpur three times a week and Thai AirAsia flying from Luang Prabang to Bangkok daily-Vientiane Times.
