BANGKOK 28 February 2014 The Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC) has set up donation funds in order to aid farmers who have not been paid under the rice pledging scheme.
BAAC President Luck Wajananawat revealed that the bank’s committee has agreed to set up a donation fund aimed to help affected farmers pending the arrival of payments from the Ministry of Finance and earnings from the sales of rice in government stocks.
The fund will be divided into 3 accounts:
1. Donation fund that donors will not receive initial investments back.
2. Supporting fund that donors will be given the capital back but with no investment returns — requiring at least 1,000 baht from each donor.
3. Supporting fund that donors will receive the capital sum back plus an interest rate of 0.63%. Each donation must be at least 1,000 baht.
The BAAC has set the target for the donation funds to reach 20 billion baht, and will start dispersing the funds to the farmers once the bank receives its first lot worth 1 billion baht.
