New SME measures under review
The Industry Ministry is developing new financial measures for small and mediumsized enterprises (SMEs), hoping to encourage them to seek out funding resources.
The ministry will finalise the new measures next month.
According to Industry Minister Uttama Savanayana, the government expects the new measures to provide local SMEs with financial loans and additional packages such as training coupons for education with new technology and innovation things.
“The minister will focus on increasing SME competitiveness as well so they can operate in both domestic and global markets,” he said.
For the financial programme, the minister will assign the Office of Small and Medium Enterprises Promotion to distribute 1-5 million baht to each qualifying firm.
Mr Uttama expects the new measures to cover roughly 20,000-30,000 companies.
Moreover, the government plans to upgrade and expand the industry design centre (IDC) to cover all regions in the near future.
The IDC is the ministry’s centre to educate local SMEs about packaging and design.
In a related development, Industry Ministry is hosting a showcase, Thailand Industry Expo 2018, which is focused on new technology and innovation to improve SMEs and provide advice for them.
Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha is presiding over the showcase, under the theme “Change to Shift”, until Sunday.
Gen Prayut said Thailand’s industrial sector is a key competency factor in forwarding the economy, which is expected to expand further as the government boosts spending for new infrastructure megaprojects and launches new stimulus measures to raise consumption.
“Local SMEs are also the major business sector driving the country’s economy,” he said.
There are 3 million SMEs and microSMEs stand at roughly 2 million companies, but only 800,000 companies are registered legally.
“The related SME agencies should try to find solutions and think about how to increase SME registration volumes so that we can track them and seek the suitable measures for them,” Gen Prayut said.