BAAC helps affected Thai farmers

BANGKOK, June 27 (TNA) - Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC) will assist Thai farmers affected by the government's rice pledging scheme by cutting interest rates of their old loans and new loans for the 2013/2014 crop, from June 20, 2013-March 31, 2014, by 3 per cent. Deputy Finance Minister Tanusak Lek-uthai, in his capacity as the chairman of the BAAC's board, told journalists of the BAAC's decision on Thursday, after the board meeting earlier in the day. Tanusak said that BAAC will lend the affected farmers a total of about 15 billion baht for the new growing season and will also spend 4 billion baht on lending at the minimum loan rate of -1 per cent to farmers’ organizations which gather paddy from members. According to the deputy finance minister, BAAC will also suspend interest charges for the farmers who use their farmers’ credit cards for one year and exempt the premium of disaster insurance for farmers’ crops. The deputy finance minister acknowledged that under the BAAC's measures, the Thai government will reduce financial burdens of the local farmers by 2 billion baht. Meanwhile, officials of agencies concerned started examining 2,100 rice mills and warehouses nationwide which keep rice under the government’s rice pledging scheme to ensure transparency and sent their real-time reports to the Royal Thai Police Office in Bangkok. Deputy Commerce Minister Nattawut Saikuar told reporters at the Royal Thai Police headquarters that the examination had been 30 per cent completed without any sign of corruption so far and expected results at all rice mills and warehouses by Thursday evening. (TNA)