Thailand's flood victims to get BAAC financial support

BANGKOK, January 31 (TNA) - Thailand's Bank of Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperative (BAAC) is borrowing 60 billion baht from the Bank of Thailand (BOT) to provide soft loans to local flood victims. Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Kittirat Na Ranong told reporters Tuesday that the BAAC board has approved the plan, under which BAAC will seek a 5-year soft loan of 60 billion baht, with a fixed annual interest rate of only 0.01 per cent, from the central bank to further lend to the flood-affected individuals, including farmers, one million baht each and the affected business operators, 30 million baht each, with a specially-offered annual interest rate of 3 per cent. Kittirat said that 80 per cent of the new loan will be provided to affected individual farmers and the remaining 20 per cent to those in the non-farm sector. According to the Thai deputy premier, all approved borrowers need to repay their debts by 2018, or they will be imposed the higher minimum retail rate (MRR) for their remaining debts beyond the five-year timeframe. (TNA)