BANGKOK, Jan 12 — Several foreign financial institutions are keen to offer lending to Thailand, according to Kritsda Udyanin, director-general of the Public Debt Management Office.
Negotiations continue with the Public Debt Management Office and the government may accept the offer if the loans would benefit the country, such as having low interest rates, said Mr Kritsda.
A number of government-sponsored mega-projects will be undertaken in future which require overseas procurement, including the double-rail track and the natural gas for vehicles (NGV) project of the Bangkok MassTransit Authority, he said.
Although it is the government policy to seek domestic borrowing as its priority, as there is much liquidity in the market and interest rates are still low, state offices can still borrow money from overseas if terms and conditions are better than from the local institutions, he said.
The Thai baht could be exchanged for the American dollar through the Bank of Thailand without affecting the country’s economy.
Currently, the government borrows money from overseas at only 6 per cent of the total public debt, which amounts to more than Bt5.6 trillion, which he said was still very low.
Management of Thailand’s public debt this year will also use the innovative bond switching instrument system to issue bonds enablng bonds to spread to other batches.
The instrument was last used in September 2014 before several bonds worth a combined Bt150 billion were issued to mature in May this year.
The use helped lower the cost to the government by more than Bt5 billion.
