$12.7b loan approved for Thai farmers
Thailand on Tuesday approved a 399.6-billion-baht (12.7-billion-dollar) loan scheme for farmers, in the government's latest effort to shore up the economy, the finance minister said. The project's centrepiece is a 325-billion-baht loan scheme for farmers to start growing crops like palm oil and cassava, which would be used to make biofuels, Finance Minister Surapong Suebwonglee told reporters. Despite the ambitious scope of the biofuels project, Surapong gave few details on how it would work.