Thai Cabinet nods for loan to Laos

BANGKOK, April 3 (TNA) - The Thai Cabinet has approved a plan to provide a loan amounting 190.7 million baht to Laos to be spent on improving road conditions in Vientiane, as part of the close neighbouring country's preparations for hosting the 9th Asia-Europe Summit in November this year. Deputy Government Spokesman Pakdihan Himathongkam told journalists that the decision was made at the Thai Cabinet's weekly meeting in Bangkok on Monday, saying that under the approved plan, Thailand's Neighbouring Countries Economic Cooperation Development Agency will borrow money from local commercial banks or state-run banks and then loaned it to Laos, with an interest of 1.5 per cent annually, a 20-year-maturity and a five-year grace period. Pakdihan revealed that, under the plan, Laos will also have to buy goods and services from Thailand at the minimum of half of the total loan with the Thai agency to charge only 0.15 per cent of the total loan as a service fee. Meanwhile, the Thai Cabinet gave the green light for the state oil fund to borrow 20 billion baht more, either from financial institutes or from an issuance of debt instruments, with repayment of two years in order to boost its liquidity. As prices of locally-grown pineapples have dropped sharply causing worries among the planters, the Thai Cabinet has also agreed to allocate a 1.44-billion- baht state budget for provincial agricultural officials to buy up to 200,000 tonnes of pineapples from growers at four baht per kilogramme to be used for making canned pineapple and animal feedstuff and to postpone a debt repayment of canned pineapple factories from May 31, 2012 to by the end of this year. (TNA)