Cabinet approves 3.48tn budget bill for fiscal 2024
The Cabinet on Tuesday approved the fiscal 2024 expenditure budget bill with planned government spending of 3.48 trillion baht, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin announced.
Speaking to reporters after the weekly Cabinet meeting, Srettha said the budget bill and attached documents had been scrutinised by the Office of Council of State before being sent back to the Cabinet for approval.
Srettha said the bill would next be tabled to the House of Representatives for their first reading, which is scheduled on January 3 and 4.
Normally, a budget bill is enacted before the start of the fiscal year in October. But this year, it was delayed by several months to first form a coalition government following the May 14 general election.
As it stands now, the planned expenditure for fiscal 2024 would be 9.3% higher than that of fiscal 2024, which set the government spending at 3.185 trillion baht.
The 2024 budget bill would seek 2.535 trillion baht for fixed expenditures or 72.85% of the total planned spending. The bill sought an allocation of 118.361 billion baht to compensate the treasury reserves, 715.381 billion baht for investments and 118.32 billion to repay loans.
The government also seeks to borrow 693 billion baht to compensate the budget deficit.
The bill states that the government expects a revenue of 2.787 trillion baht with a projected GDP of 19.02 trillion.
After the first reading and vetting by a special House committee, the bill is scheduled to be sent back to the House for the second and third readings on April 3 and 4.
The bill will be sent to the Senate for their deliberation on April 9 and 10, and it is expected to be sent for a royal command within April 17 if all goes to plan.
