Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin has reiterated the government’s determination to resolve formal and informal debt problems within the 4-year term of his administration.
He said that the progress in tackling the debt problem over the past two months reflects his administration’s sincere intention to help people escape from the debt trap.
Debtors are divided into four main groups:
• Individuals and small and medium sized enterprises who were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Those who have regular incomes, but are over-burdened with debt obligations, including 3 million members of state cooperatives and 150,000 credit card debtors.
• 1.8 million farmers without regular incomes, who have incurred about 250 billion baht in debt, and some 600,000 debtors to the Student Loan Fund.
• Debtors who have non-performing loans. An asset management firm will be set up to resolve the NPL problem.
The prime minister said that about 140,000 informal debtors, with total debts of 9.8 million baht, have registered for government help to settle their debt since last December.
He claimed that 21,000 cases have been mediated and 12,000 cases (57%) have been resolved, with the amount of informal debt being reduced by 670 million baht.
He attributed this success to the efforts of officials at the Interior Ministry and the police in convincing informal creditors to enter the mediation process.
He said that the police have arrested over 1,300 creditors and their henchmen for resorting violence to get debt repayments from defaulting debtors.
The next step, he said, is for the Finance Ministry to secure low-interest funding, via the Government Savings Bank and the Bank of Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives, for their defaulting debtors.
The final step, said the prime minister, is to ensure that the debtors will not create new debt and this task has been delegated to the Labour Ministry and the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security.
