State enterprises to invest Bt359 bn this year, Sepo says

As of the end of January, they had invested a total of Bt32.5 billion in the current fiscal year that began in October, about 73 per cent of their early estimate for the period of Bt44.56 billion, he said.
He said 35 state enterprises had started their investment early in the first quarter of the fiscal year, for a total of Bt26.22 billion by the end of January, and the other 11 enterprises invested Bt6.28 billion in January.

GDP growth 
Ekeniti said Sepo was confident that all 45 state enterprises would speed up their investments in line with the government policy to achieve growth in gross domestic product of between 3 and 4 per cent this year.
In the final quarter of last fiscal year, investment by state enterprises grew by 12.3 per cent from the third quarter. This was part of the public sector’s effort to boost the economy growth while the private sector was delaying its investment plans, he said.
This year, the top three state enterprises in terms of investment budgets are the State Railway of Thailand with Bt76.15 billion, the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand with Bt67.58 billion, and PTT with Bt45.79 billion.
As outlined by Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak at a meeting with Sepo yesterday, the government needs to speed up investment by the state enterprises both to boost |GDP growth and to increase the confidence of the private sector to increase its investments once state infrastructure projects get started, Ekeniti said.