Finance Ministry to seek Cabinet nod to promote domestic tourism
The Finance Ministry is planning to propose to the Cabinet on Tuesday measures to promote domestic tourism to help business operators affected by the outbreak of the new coronavirus, which has significantly reduced the number of Chinese tourists since the beginning of 2020, Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak said today (February 3).
“One measure will be the fourth phase of the ‘Eat, Shop, Spend’ campaign to boost domestic travel and spending among Thais to help local entrepreneurs,” he said. “We will also explore measures to restore the confidence of foreign tourists once the situation goes back to normal.”
Somkid will also meet the finance minister and the Budget Bureau director on Tuesday to discuss alternative sources of funds for the government’s key campaigns while the 2020 budget disbursement is still on hold.
The deputy PM said that in the past few weeks, the Finance Ministry has issued several measures to boost domestic investment, such as offering tax deductions 2.5 times the investment capital, free tariffs on import of machinery, and urging banks to grant more loans to business operators who wish to upgrade their facilities.
“The appreciation of the baht has created a good opportunity for Thai manufacturers to import equipment from overseas to boost their production capacity,” he added.
“Furthermore, I have ordered the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives to explore the possibility of establishing a subsidiary to rent agricultural machines and equipment to community enterprises and farmers on a monthly or yearly basis. This measure should help in increasing the production capacity at the grass-roots level and expand business opportunities for other industries, such as tourism, services and processing of agricultural produce into OTOPs,” Somkid said.