Funds to be distributed to Thai farmers

The Thai government will begin to loan a maximum of $833 in cash to each villager across the country to help stimulate a sluggish domestic economy.

The Office of National Funds for Villages and Urban Communities will provide the loan with a two-year grace period for each of the villagers who may ask for it, the agency's director Natee Klibthong said on Monday.

The 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 and Agricultural Cooperatives, Xinhua news agency reported.

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 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.