Thai Cabinet extends New Year holidays

BANGKOK, December 13 (TNA) - The Thai Cabinet has resolved to extend New Year holidays for another one more day, as a gift for people who were fighting against the country's widespread floods over the past couple of months and to also promote domestic tourism. Thai Government Spokeswoman Thitima Chaisaeng told reporters of the Cabinet's decision today to extend the upcoming New Year public holidays from December 31, 2011 to January 3, 2012, aimed to enable the affected people to restore their flooded houses and to stimulate local tourism-related businesses. According to the government spokesperson, the Thai Cabinet also agreed to hold mobile Cabinet meetings once a month in the upcountry, with the first mobile meeting set to be held in Chiang Mai Province in the Thai North on January 16. Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra also reportedly told her Cabinet to help promote Thailand's community-based goods under the "One Tambon One Product" (OTOP) program. Meanwhile, Deputy Government Spokesman Anusorn Iamsa-ad told reporters that the Thai Cabinet has resolved to extend the emergency decree in the country's troubled deep South for another three months, from December 20, 2011 to March 19, 2012. (TNA)