BANGKOK, 10 April 2014, – The Bank of Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC) will today withdraw another 500 million baht from its Rice Farmers Fund to pay farmers under the rice pledging program. It has also said local administrations nationwide will buy 10 billion baht worth of its 0.63% return promissory notes to help fund the payment.
According to Managing Director of the BAAC, Luck Watjananawat, the bank has already paid more than 1 billion baht of the rice pledging money to eligible farmers.
He added that local administrations across the nation would next week purchase 10 billion baht worth of BAAC’s promissory notes, in their bid to assist the bank in paying the long-delayed rice mortgage payment. The financial instrument was one of the 3 approaches the BAAC came up with in February, after the 5-billion-baht loan it borrowed from the Government Savings Bank (GSB) was cancelled. The proposed loan drew angry backlash from anti-government protesters, causing its customers to transfer their savings to other banks, leaving the GSB with no choice but to cancel the lending.
As for the 20 billion baht fund the bank received from the government’s central budget, the Managing Director said the bank would have to wait for clarification from the government whether to borrow additional funds to pay the farmers when the fund was depleted.
