Thai government to speed up transport budget

BANGKOK, August 24 (TNA) - In accordance with the government’s policy to further stimulate the Thai economy, Transport Minister Chadchart Sittipunt says that his ministry will accelerate its spending on allocated budget during the 2014 fiscal year, starting from on October 1, 2013, on new transport development projects. Chadchart told reporters on Saturday that his ministry plans to spend the allocated budget for the 2014 fiscal year, along with more than 10 billion baht left from the current 2013 fiscal year, in building roads and other necessary infrastructure projects. As the 2014 draft budget bill was designed to allow the Thai government to borrow over two trillion baht to invest in new mega infrastructure development projects, Chadchart assessed that the issue should be tabled for a House debate by early next month. The tranport minister opined that the weakening Thai baht now should not affect the government's planned seven-year investment on the mega projects, as most of the investment funds will be borrowed from local financial institutes and locally-produced construction materials will be mostly used, except locomotives of new high-speed trains which need to be imported but they only cost 20 per cent of the total investment cost. Meanwhile, Yongsit Rojsrikul, Governor of the state-run Mass Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand (MRTA), acknowledged that the Transport Ministry has ordered MRTA to speed up constructing a mass transit rail system linking between Ladprao area in Bangkok with Samrong district in neighbouring Samut Prakan province. According to the MRTA governor, the Ladprao-Samrong high-speed train system is one of 10 new mass transit rail systems the Thai government wants to start building by 2015. (TNA)