BAAC is not worried about the government reducing its debt repayment budget.

BAAC is not worried about the government reducing the debt repayment budget for 2025, moving forward with lending to farmers, helping to reduce informal debt, expanding lending to village health volunteers by 50,000 baht per person, totaling 20 billion baht, starting from 9 Sept. Mr. Chatchai Sirilai, Manager of the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC), said that in the case of the government reducing the budget for repaying state bank debts in the 2025 budget, the items were changed by transferring the budgets of 5 state banks, totaling 35 billion baht, to be reserved in the central budget to support the '10,000 baht top-up project via digital wallet.' As for the budget for repaying BAAC debts, it was reduced from the original BAAC requesting a budget to compensate for expenses and income from state projects of 59,799 million baht, with the first tranche being the budget for debt management of 7 state policies, totaling 31,749 million baht. The second part is a budget sent to the Pub lic Debt Management Office (PDMO) to manage debt, a budget of 28,050 million baht, cut to only the second part of 28,050 million baht to send to the PDMO to manage debt. Even though the debt repayment has been extended, BAAC's liquidity will not be affected. It is only an extension of the debt. Both the principal and interest can still be managed. It is currently under consideration by the council. Loans to the agricultural sector can still be made as usual, with the focus on using marketing to lead production. Mr. Chatchai added that BAAC aims to take care of household debt and informal debt in accordance with government policy, such as loans for village health volunteers of no more than 20,000 baht per person. The BAAC board has approved an increase to 50,000 baht per person, starting from September 9, with a budget of 20 billion baht, with an interest rate of 0.67 percent per month, which is cheaper than informal debt. For the farmer customer group, it is admitted that they are a customer group that is at risk due to the weather, fluctuating world market prices, and the lack of stockpiling capacity. Therefore, it will take time to upgrade and improve the quality of agricultural products to be strong. Source: Thai News Agency