Rural economic stimulus vowed
The Commerce Ministry has pledged to move ahead with plans to drive local economic development, e-commerce, exports and big data for farm products and trade.
Commerce Minister Sontirat Sontijirawong said yesterday after a workshop that the ministry is still focused on stimulating the local economy, reducing living costs, driving exports and stabilising farm prices as priorities for 2018.
“Thong Fah Pracha Rat low-cost shops are doing quite well in strengthening local economic development,” Mr Sontirat said. “The ministry aims to raise the number of Thong Fah Pracha Rat outlets to 40,000 by the end of this year and hopes the lowcost shop will become a vital sales space for locally made products, One Tambon One Product and farm produce in remote areas.”
More than 20,000 shops registered with the Commerce Ministry as Thong Fah Pracha Rat shops in the first phase, which started on Oct 1 last year. The scheme is in the second phase.
The Thong Fah Pracha Rat shops are part of a 41.9-billion-baht aid package approved by the cabinet last August, aimed at 11.7 million low-income earners — 5 million of whom live below the poverty line.
The cabinet in January this year approved 35.7 billion baht for the second phase of the welfare scheme.
According to Mr Sontirat, the ministry has also initiated a franchise scheme to encourage rural dwellers to open franchises to raise their income, under which the Government Savings Bank has agreed to provide 20,000-baht loans to each participant.
The scheme has already drawn 5 million registrants, he said, adding that the ministry is also revving up efforts to promote business owners, community enterprises and cooperatives to make the best use of existing online trading platforms and the ministry’s own business-to-business e-marketplace, Thaitrade.com.
The ministry is also committed to promoting and strengthening export capability of Thai SMEs.