Over 800 U.S. dollars to be loaned to each Thai villager

Thailand will begin to loan a maximum of 833 U.S. dollars in cash to each villager in all parts of the country to help stimulate a sluggish domestic economy later this year.

The Office of National Funds for Villages & Urban Communities will provide the 30,000 baht (833 U.S. dollars) loan with a two- years grace period for each of the villagers who may ask for it, said the government agency's director Natee Klibthong on Monday.

The so-called Village Fund, which will be available to people in some 75,000 villages nationwide from December, will be provided by branches of the Government Savings Bank and the Bank for Agriculture & Agricultural Cooperatives throughout the country, he said.

However, the loan money, primarily aimed to solve a sustained stagflation, will not be given to those who have not as yet entirely settled any remaining debts with the agency or those who might possibly intend to use it only to repay debts which they may have had with loan sharks, he said.

The agency which has earmarked some 1.6 billion U.S. dollars in cash to fund the villagers is obviously reviving part of a populist campaign originally launched since the last 14 years by former leader Thaksin Shinawatra.

Somkid Jatusripitak, a current deputy premier in charge of economic affairs, was then member of a Thaksin cabinet putting the Village Fund facility to work. Endi