No toll will be collected on three expressway routes to mark Makha Bucha Day, which falls on February 16 this year, the Expressway Authority of Thailand (EXAT) announced on Monday.
The routes are Chalerm Maha Nakhon expressway with 19 tollgates, Si Rat expressway with 31 tollgates and Udon Ratthaya expressway with 10 tollgates.
Toll fees will be waived for 24 hours from midnight on Wednesday.
Makha Bucha is an important Buddhist holiday in Thailand with most people visiting temples and taking part in rites including a late-night candle procession.
Mobile provider Advanced Wireless Network (AIS) will be summoned by the telecoms regulator to explain a network crash that hit its customers on Monday.
The National Broadcasting Commission and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) said that AIS officials will be called in to provide information on why its network went down from 7.30am to 8.30am on Valentine’s Day.
The network provider must give a detailed explanation including its troubleshooting solutions and remedial measures for users affected, the NBTC said.
The regulator said it also instructed AIS to restore normal service and ensure proper maintenance, repairs and upgrades so that communications between phone users were not disrupted again.
The Finance and Energy ministries are finalising their proposal to the Cabinet tomorrow (February 15) to seek a reduction in diesel tax from the current 5.99 baht per litre, which is based on oil consumption of about 2 billion litres per month.
The tax earns the Excise Department approximately 144 billion baht per year.
The reduction of the tax by one baht per litre would cost the Excise Department about 2 billion baht per month, or 24 billion baht per year in lost revenue.
However, the Finance and Energy ministries are said to be in the process of reaching an agreement, focusing on the impact on government revenue in considering a lower tax.
The government’s revenue collection in the first four months of fiscal year 2022 is up 6.1 per cent year on year, the Fiscal Policy Office (FPO) of the Finance Ministry revealed on Monday.
FPO director-general Pornchai Thiraveja revealed collections of 758.388 billion baht, 42.676 billion baht or 6 per cent higher than their estimates for the first four months of fiscal year 2022 (October 2021 – January 2022). The Revenue Department’s collections and remittances of state enterprises exceeded estimates by 70.648 and 6.737 billion baht, or 14.3 per cent and 14.7 per cent, respectively.
The increase in total revenue comes from higher value added tax, corporate income tax, and personal income tax collections, and increase in imports, Dubai crude oil prices, as well as income of juristic persons that have begun to increase due to economic recovery.
Revenue remittances of state enterprises were also higher than the forecast, especially the revenue remittance of PTT Pcl, which was significantly higher than the estimate.
Nearly 1,400 kilometres of cables in Bangkok and its vicinity would go underground within three years, a lawmaker revealed on Monday.
Member of Parliament Korranit Ngamsukonratana from the ruling Palang Pracharath Party, who is chairperson of the subcommittee on the organisation of electrical cables and communication lines, said work would begin in 2022.
She said the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) and related agencies, such as Metropolitan Electricity Authority, Provincial Electricity Authority, and National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission, will jointly work towards moving electricity and communication cables underground in Bangkok and its vicinity within three years.
In 2022, urgent work will begin on moving 456 kilometres of communication power lines underground, while the remaining 936 kilometres will be completed within three years, she said.
There is also a plan to move more than 6,000 kilometres of electricity and communication cables underground in other provinces within three years, Korranit added.
Thailand will go ahead with the controversial 300-baht “tourism tax” for international tourists, but implementation will be delayed until June, Tourism and Sports Minister Phipat Ratchakitprakarn said on Monday.
The National Tourism Policy Committee resolved last week to go ahead with the plan despite calls from the tourism and hospitality industry to drop the plan. Thailand’s tourism operators, who are struggling in the fallout of the Covid-19 crisis, are worried this 300-baht (US$9) fee will drive tourists away.
The fee was initially scheduled to kick in from April 1.
Phipat said his ministry was working out details of the plan with relevant government agencies after which the matter will be submitted to the Cabinet for approval. Once given the go-ahead, the regulation will be published in the Royal Gazette and go into effect 90 days later.
He said the entry fee is in line with the 2019 national tourism policy and will initially only be applied to people arriving by air.
The ministry has yet to come up with ways of applying the fee to tourists arriving by land and water.
The minister explained that of the 300 baht collected, 20 per cent will be spent on insurance, which will provide a 500,000-baht coverage in case of an accident and 1-million baht in case of death. The compensation will be provided within 45 days.
The remainder of the fee will be split between airlines and the national tourism policy fund, which will spend the funds on infrastructure for top tourist destinations and basic facilities like public toilets.
Assets worth Bt1.371 billion have been confiscated from convicted drug traffickers following the enforcement of a new anti-drug law, Justice Minister Somsak Thepsutin said on Monday.
Somsak said government agencies now have a new criminal code as a tool for fighting drug traffickers.
The new criminal code, which focuses on assets seizure, was enforced late last year and the government hopes the stepped up seizure of assets of drug traffickers would eventually force them to stop the crime.
Somsak said several government agencies have been fighting drug traffickers under the operation code name “Pali” and have been using the new law as the main tool.
He said the Justice Ministry of the Prayut administration is confident of reaching the annual goal of seizing assets worth Bt10 billion with the enforcement of the new law.
“Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has been monitoring the assets seizure of drug traffickers because he attaches high importance to the drug issue,” Somsak said.
“It’s not hard to reach the goal of seizing Bt10 billion worth of assets. And I would like to call on people to give us leads, because we have set aside Bt500 million for providing rewards to those who tip us off about drug trafficking.”
The Royal Thai Police on Monday warned people to cautious about three types of scams on Valentine’s Day.
Police spokesman Pol Colonel Siriwat Deepor said the first type is the “romance scam”, in which the scammers create social media accounts using a handsome man as an avatar with fake profiles, such as good working status and a luxurious lifestyle. Most victims are Thai women aged 40 years or above, he said.
Once the victims feel attracted, the scammers will deceive them with cash demands, such as for medical expenses, inheritance tax, concession fees or tariff in exchange for valuable goods.
Online scammers also perpetrate the “hybrid scam”, Siriwat said. They will create social media accounts using a beautiful Asian woman as an avatar with believable profiles to lure investors. Most scammers are Chinese, he said.
The scammers will offer varieties of investment schemes, such as foreign currencies with high returns, and forward an application download link to lure the victims to install it on their smartphone.
The victims will earn some profit at the beginning, but it will come with conditions when they want to withdraw their investment, such as they must pay 40 per cent of their profit. Even though the victims pay cash to scammers, they are unable to withdraw their investment.
He said the third type of scamming was “sextortion”. He said the scammers, mostly found to be Filipinos, will create social media accounts using a sexy woman as an avatar to lure victims. Most victims are men with good working status and men with normal families.
Once the victims are lured, the scammers will make a video call and ask the victims to send images and video clips when they help themselves or do sexual activities.
The scammers will then blackmail the victims, threaning to publicise the images and video clips or send it to their wives, supervisors or friends if they do not transfer cash to them. Most victims decide to pay up to save their reputation, the spokesman said.
“The Royal Thai Police would like to ask people not to believe in the scammers to avoid becoming their victims,” Siriwat said.
Anyone who finds anonymous social media accounts can contact the police hotline 191 or the Royal Thai Police hotline 1599 24 hours a day, all week, he added.
Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has instructed government agencies concerned to come up with road maps on Thai-Saudi cooperation in various fields within two months.
Government Spokesman Thanakorn Wangboonkongchana said on Monday that the prime minister wants government agencies to speed up drafting of road maps to follow up on the normalisation of Thai-Saudi diplomatic ties on January 25.
Prayut led a high-level delegation to Saudi Arabia to normalise ties on January 25 after three decades of estranged relations.
The prime minister wants to see perked up cooperation between the two kingdoms, especially on trade, investment and labour, the spokesman added.
The government agencies concerned must set up mechanisms on bilateral cooperation to draft cooperation frameworks and concretely implement the frameworks, Thanakorn said.
“The prime minister emphasised the formulation of road maps for cooperation to cover all dimensions to follow up on the momentum of his historic visit to Saudi Arabia,” the spokesman said.
“Comprehensive consultations will have to be made with coordination by both state and private sectors for the highest interest of the two peoples. The prime minister also wants to see concrete results within two months.”
Meanwhile, the Commerce Ministry has consulted with the Central Islamic Committee of Thailand and Thailand’s Chamber of Commerce on how to reach the goal of a 6.2 per cent export growth to the Middle East nation.
The research arm of Kasikornbank has predicted that Thailand’s exports to Saudi Arabia may grow by 15 per cent with an export value of some US$1.9 billion.
Kasikornbank said Thailand has the potential to export agricultural and industrial products to the Middle East country, including halal foods, rice, processed seafood, fruits, spice, instant cereal meals, rubber products, wood products, and electric appliances.
The bank said Thailand also has the potential to offer medical and hospitality services to Saudi patients and tourists.
The Labour Ministry has said that concerned government agencies are coordinating with Saudi Arabia’s job placement office on details of vacancies in the Middle East country.
The Labour Ministry also plans to train Thai labourers through upskilling and reskilling programmes so that their qualifications will meet the demands of Saudi employers. The ministry is allowing Thai workers to register for jobs in Saudi Arabia via the Overseas Employment E-service website of the Department of Employment.
Removing Covid-19 from the list of emergency conditions will affect low-income households and daily labourers, Anusorn Thamjai, former dean of Rangsit University’s Faculty of Economics, warned on Sunday.
He said curbing the spread of the virus will also become more difficult because workers will not tell their employers they are infected, skip treatment and avoid isolation.
If there is no free treatment, then Covid-19 will spread more in the low-income sector and end up having a greater impact on the economy, he warned.
However, he said, if the government keeps Covid-19 part of the emergency diseases list, the economy will progress because the government will get more tax revenue to use for public healthcare.
Also, he said, all Covid-19 patients should be provided with free healthcare as not many people have private health insurance.
This can be financed by shifting funds from the defence budget to the Public Health Ministry until the crisis ends.
The Thai Life Assurance Association may also not cover daily compensation or treatment for people isolating at home if the government declares Covid-19 as endemic.
He said before declaring it as endemic, the government should be sure that Covid-19 will not spread, or it may end up having to close the country again.
Meanwhile, he also warned that providing low-quality vaccines to students would not prevent infection and may put them at long-term risk.
The prime minister wants to see perked up cooperation between the two kingdoms, especially on trade, investment and labour, the spokesman added.
The Labour Ministry has said that concerned government agencies are coordinating with Saudi Arabia’s job placement office on details of vacancies in the Middle East country.
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