BOT policies an obstacle in government’s economic mission: Paetongtarn

She was speaking at the Pheu Thai headquarters in Bangkok at an event held to showcase the vision and progress in policymaking of the ruling coalition in the 9th month of its term in office.

Paetongtarn said the law attempts to make the BOT independent from the government, but that has become an obstacle in solving the country’s economic problems. She faulted the central bank’s fiscal policy for the steady increase in public debt every year as the government is having to set a deficit budget.

She said if the monetary policy framed by the BOT refuses to understand and cooperate with the government, Thailand would never be able to lower the debt ceiling.

Paetongtarn said the government had started pouring funds into the economy as a lot of money had been sucked out of the system. It is one of the reasons why Thailand’s economic growth is lower than the average of ASEAN countries, she said.

By increasing the minimum wage to 400 baht per day, everyone will have to adjust for increase in productivity from employee wealth, she added.

She promised that Pheu Thai would push for economic expansion in every dimension. It's not just about increasing liquidity and increasing wages. New money will come from abroad as investment and create opportunities for all Thai people under the leadership of Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, she said.

“In the past 10 months, the government has made an effort to analyse and understand to solve difficult and complex problems and move forward in every dimension, because we lost almost two decades of time and opportunity following the coup. We are confident we can do it and will get a perfect score of 10 before the next election," she promised.

The government had pressured the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) and the BOT to reduce the policy interest rate from the current decade-high level of 2.50%. Most recently, Srettha had pressed the MPC, a day before its meeting, to reduce the policy interest rate by 0.25-0.50%. The MPC, however, decided on March 10 to hold the policy interest rate.

As a follow-up effort, the PM asked the executives of four major commercial banks — Kasikornbank, Krungthai Bank, Bangkok Bank and Siam Commercial Bank — to help lower the interest for vulnerable groups and small and medium-sized enterprises. The banks obliged two days later by lowering the minimum retail rate by 25 basis points.