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BoT downplays Maptaput as risk-factor for creditor banks
Bank of Thailand (BoT) Assistant Governor Sorasit Soontornkes on Friday
shrugged off mounting concern that the suspension of 65 investment projects
in the Maptaput Industrial Estate could put creditor banks at risk, saying
the financial position of the banks remains strong.
He said that commercial banks had loaned about Bt200 billion to investment
projects in Maptaput. Of this, Bt95 billion had been already drawn down.
An initial survey found that the loans were disbursed normally and that no
projects had experienced difficulties in cash flow.
As a result, he said, the banks need not set loan-loss provisioning because
it is unlikely the Bt95 billion loan amount would become non-performing as a
whole.
“Even if the amount becomes non-performing as a whole, it will not affect
the financial position of the banks because the capital-to-risk asset ratio
is as high as 15-16 percent now and the reserve provision as required by the
central bank is so substantial,” he said.
As of the end of November 2009, the outstanding loans extended by the banks
to the suspended projects totaled Bt78.06 billion or 1.15 percent of the
total loans.
In case the loans turn bad as a whole, it would reduce the bank’s capital
adequacy set under the Bank for International Settlement (BIS) rule by only
0.1 percent to around 15.8 percent. So, it should not affect the banks’
financial status.
In the short run, Sorasit projected, the suspension of the 65 investment
projects, if not persistent, would not impact creditor banks, but should the
suspension drag on, it needs to be assessed again to determine how adversely
the bank would be affected. (TNA)
Anand panel gathering evidence on impact of court industrial project suspensions
Members of a four-party panel chaired by former prime
minister Anand Panyarachun on Saturday traveled to Rayong on a fact finding
mission to gather evidence of negative impacts on the people following the court
suspension of 65 industrial projects, earlier being built in the main industrial
estate in the province, Rayong Governor Sayumporn Limthai said Saturday, Dec. 5.
Tasked with accelerating the government’s overall response and balanced
assessment as an independent body under Article 67 of the Constitution to ensure
that each project conducts an environmental impact assessment (EIA) and a health
impact assessment (HIA), the committee stayed in the province until Monday, Dec.
7, Sayumporn said.
He said provincial officials gathered information on problems faced by people
living in the Maptaput Industrial Estate and nearby areas to present to the
panel members during their stay in order to accelerate the process on setting up
the independent body.
Initially, it was found that suspending the 65 industrial projects would have a
ripple-effect as they would employ more than 30,000 people and affect related
businesses in the area including rental homes, retail shops, restaurants, local
transport services and construction materials, Sayumporn said.
The Supreme Administrative Court on Wednesday Dec 2 upheld the earlier
suspension of 65 industrial projects in the country’s largest industrial estate
but 11 projects designed to reduce environmental impact problems have received
permission to continue operations. (TNA)
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