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Thailand: Chamber to add value
The Thai Chamber of Commerce has vowed to upgrade 50,000 entrepreneurs to make them more innovative and add value to their business in line with the Thailand 4.0 initiative.
The chamber also aims to raise revenue in the business sector by 20-30 billion baht over the next two years and increase GDP growth by 0.2 percentage points.
Kalin Sarasin, chairman of the chamber, said the focus of the upgrade will be on Thai strengths such as trade, investment, agriculture, food, tourism and services.
“Our upgrade is meant to convince at least 50% of our 100,000 members to use the creative, cultural or digital economy models, as well as increase trade in services,” he said.
Mr Kalin said the service sector contributes just 52% of Thailand’s GDP, compared with 80% in the US, 76% in Singapore and 72% in Japan.
Vichai Assarasakorn, vice-chairman of the chamber, said the government has set aside a number of financial assistance schemes for Thai small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), including the Public-Private Collaborative SME Development Fund and 115 billion baht in mid-year budget funding to strengthen Thai SMEs. Large Thai firms have also agreed to a government request to mentor SMEs to upgrade their competitiveness.
Industry Minister Uttama Savanayana said recently the government has approved an aggregate 37-billion-baht soft loan programme to support SMEs. The loans will be provided under the SME Transformation Loan programme (15 billion), the Public-Private Collaborative SME Development Fund (20 billion) and the SME Rehabilitation Fund (2 billion).
The sum from the first two programmes will be lent mainly through SME Bank, with the remaining 2 billion extended by the Office of Small and Medium Enterprises Promotion.
Source: http://www.bangkokpost.com/business/news/1251446/chamber-to-add-value