BANGKOK – About 1.5 million people have registered with the government’s Chim, Shop, Chai (Taste, Shop, Use) economic stimulus campaign since its launch this year. The Ministry of Finance has provided a quota of 500,000 registrations for the elderly, and registration started on November 17.
The Director of the Fiscal Policy Office (FPO), Lawaron Sangsanit, as the Spokesman for the Ministry of Finance, said the elderly can sign up from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. The Ministry of Finance is to evaluate the process to make sure that all interested senior citizens have signed up with the campaign. For the elderly who cannot register on their own, they can seek assistance at their local Krungthai Bank branche.
The third phase of the Chim, Shop, Chai campaign won’t offer the 1,000-baht cash handout as before, because the government wants the recipients to spend cash in the g-Wallet 2 balance of the Pao Tang mobile application. The recipients will also be eligible for a 20% tax rebate on 30,000 to 50,000 baht spent. The campaign covers all provinces in Thailand, and all recipients in the first, second and third phases are now allowed to spend in their home provinces. The stimulus measures will end on January 31 next year.
The first round of cash rebates on this month’s spending will take place next month. The second round of cash rebates on spending in December 2019 will take place in January 2020, and so forth. Interested vendors can register with the Comptroller General’s Department and provincial finance offices until January 15 next year.
According to a recent study, most senior citizens spend on dining out, tourism and relaxation. If each of them spends 10,000 baht on tourism, some 5 billion baht will be injected into the Thai economy. The government wants people to take their parents and grandparents for a vacation, especially during the New Year’s holiday.
From September 27 to November 17, 2019, 11,738,468 people used the Chim, Shop, Chai privileges, with a total spending of 13.11 billion baht. About 11.56 billion baht was spent from the g-Wallet 1 balances, and about 1.54 billion were from the g-Wallet 2 balances.
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