Thai PM reassures parliament about transparency of spending loans

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Thai premier on Thursday gave reassurances to the parliament that the spending of 68 billion U.S. dollars in loans for Thailand's infrastructure development will be transparent.

In Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra's prelude to Thursday's Lower House debate on the highly-criticised borrowing, she clarified that the government has resorted to issuing the bill rather than seeking funds from the national annual budget to enable projects to carry on without disruption in light of the country's unstable political situation.

In the draft bill, approved by the Cabinet last week, the 68 billion dollars budget will be spent in the government's three strategies: shifting Thailand's logistics from road to rail systems, linking the center of each region to neighboring countries, and building infrastructure to serve main economic areas in the provinces.

The premier said the long-term loans will not affect Thailand' s financial landscape though public debts against GDP will be higher since the massive investment will automatically increase GDP, she said.

She said internal political conflict since 2006 have hindered the state's investment for infrastructure development, pushing up transport cost by 15 percent and pulling down the country's competitive edge, adding that the bill was to acquire the loans for urban expansion and to prepare Thailand for economic and trade investment domestically and internationally especially in the Southeast Asian region.

House speaker Somsak Kiatsuranont said the ruling and opposition blocs will have 14 hours and 16 hours respectively to debate the bill. The opposition has prepared about 60 MPs to take the floor. Endi

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