The meeting will map out a plan of actions and propose it to the Joint Standing Committee on Commerce, Industry and Banking on January 29.

The plan will then be submitted to the government.

The chamber will also ask the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry to accelerate passage of the Act on air-quality management.

Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak chaired the committee’s first meeting on Thursday (January 23) and said afterward the Finance Ministry had given a progress report on a new tax incentive to help boost the economy.

The incentive, to be presented to the Cabinet on Tuesday, will let private firms deduct 1.5 times the value of imported machinery and capital goods.

Somkid said the measure would go into effect in tandem with other new tax incentives being considered by the Board of Investment, including one designed to encourage major companies to invest in rural areas.

The Transport Ministry was meanwhile urged to speed its investments this year, especially in the western section of the Orange Line mass transit route in Bangkok, from the Thailand Cultural Centre to Bang Khun Non. That also comes before the Cabinet soon.

Somkid pressed relevant parties to hasten development of maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facilities and the “smart city” project in the Eastern Economic Corridor.

The deputy PM said he planned to visit the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission on Monday to discuss the use of 5G technology to drive the economy.

The commission will auction off four 5G spectra on February 16.

The Office of National Water Resources was ordered to expedite the digging of Bt10 billion worth of wells to mitigate the effects of drought.

Somkid urged the Commerce Ministry to hasten completion of plans for Thailand to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. That involves establishing a fund to assisted organisations adversely affected by the move, he added.

The ministry also has to swiftly complete negotiations on free-trade agreements with the European Union and Hong Kong.

The government has prepared a contingency plan should the budget bill face further delay due to legal issues, says officials.

Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak on Thursday(January 23) admitted that the government did not know when the Bt3.2-trillion budget bill will become law and how much longer budget disbursement will be delayed after it has already been delayed for four months.

His comment came after House speaker Chuan Leekpai submitted a request to the Constitutional Court, seeking its ruling on the verification of the bill after two Bhumjaithai MPs (Chalong Toedweerapong and Natee Ratchakitprakarn) were accused of casting their vote without being present during the voting process.

The bill’s passage was first delayed amid the political impasse after the general election in March, from its annual implementation in October. The government then expected it to be passed into law in February this year. The Thai fiscal year starts in October and ends in September.

If the budget is put off again, it would delay public spending as a series of procedures have to be completed before budget disbursement could take place, Somkid said.

“The government may have just four months left for public investments, it could derail much of the planned projects. Such problem should have not occurred,” Somkid said in reference to the legal hurdle.

When asked if the government would resort to issuing an emergency decree to jump start public spending, Somkid said it should not do so as the case had been forwarded to the Constitutional Court.

Meanwhile, Director of Budget Bureau Dechapiwat Na Songkhla, said the government might run out of cash by March.

In the event of a delay to the passage of a budget bill, the government is allowed by law to spend in advance 50 per cent of the amount set in the bill.

In the past four months of delay, October to January, the government had  spent Bt1 trillion, leaving it a balance of just Bt500 billion in the absence of the FY2020 budget.

The amount may be enough to cover government expenditure until March before the coffers of state agencies dry up, he warned.

The Budget Bureau will ask Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha and the Cabinet to consider raising advance spending to 75 per cent of the total amount under the 2020-budget bill, he said, adding that it would allow the administration to carry on until May and avoid a potential government shutdown.

To lessen impact from the delay, the government plans to accelerate capital spending of Bt 223.3 billion and current spending items such as state officials’ salary of Bt776.7 billion by the end of March, he added.

Stock investors were also unsettled by the latest development, leading to share sales and a drop in the SET index.

“We are going to review a whole host of issues,” she told reporters after the Governing Council meeting on Thursday. The exercise will encompass “how we deliver, how we measure, what tools we have and how we communicate.”

Lagarde said the conclusions of the review should be communicated before the end of the year. She stressed that it will involve listening to the views of ordinary people, though differing from the approach of the Federal Reserve’s “Fed Listens” events of last year.

While Lagarde noted signs of a “moderate increase in underlying inflation” — a remark that briefly pushed the euro to a session high — it remains well short of its goal of just under 2%. She also observed that downside risks to the ECB’s economic outlook are “somewhat less pronounced.”

Lagarde said monetary policy must remain highly accommodative, and reiterated that governments with the space to add fiscal stimulus should be prepared to do so.

Her efforts to modernize the ECB include potentially resetting the inflation goal, studying alternative measures of price growth, and assessing its policy tools. She’s benefiting from signs that a deep manufacturing slump in the 19-nation economy is bottoming out before it causes greater harm to the labor market and consumer spending.

That should allow policymakers to focus on the review, which will last most of the year and also tackle issues including financial stability, climate change and communication.

“I would not exclude, preclude or anticipate how we’re going to deliver,” she said, adding that it would be unfair to reveal her own opinions just yet. “I do have my views as do other members. My mission is to harness all the views around.”

The ECB is questioning its methods as globalization, digitalization and demographics challenge long-standing theories that inflation will pick up if you throw enough money at it. Negative interest rates and 2.6 trillion euros ($2.9 trillion) of asset purchases so far resulted in consumer-price growth barely above 1%.

Other economies haven’t fared much better. Japanese inflation has been muted for a generation despite extremely accommodative policy. In the U.S., where fiscal policy has helped a little, the Federal Reserve is also appraising its strategy. Those results are expected to be released this year and may be inspiration for the ECB, which has already said it will take a page out of the Fed’s book by listening to academics and members of civil society.

At the ECB’s meeting, the 500th since the central bank was founded two decades ago, the Governing Council also decided to keep the deposit rate unchanged at -0.5% and the pace of monthly bond buying at 20 billion euros ($22 billion), in line with economists’ expectations.

Policymakers reiterated their pledge that borrowing costs will remain at present or lower levels until the inflation outlook has “robustly” converged with their goal. Quantitative easing will “run for as long as necessary.”

Economic prospects have improved lately. Trade tensions have eased with the signing of a preliminary U.S.-China trade deal, though U.S. President Donald Trump warned this week that threat of car tariffs still looms over the European Union, and confidence among businesses and investors has picked up.

Gauges tracking future output by euro-area factories and orders from abroad suggest the trend may last. Volkswagen AG, the world’s biggest carmaker, saw global vehicle deliveries edg higher last year as it eked out a small gain in China and saw improved results in both Europe and South America.

The IMF’s latest update, released this week on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, noted that global risks are “less skewed” negatively.

Jurin led a group of 80 entrepreneurs to the southern Indian cities of Bangalore and Hyderabad with support from the Indian government where they conducted business.

He said the Indian government’s housing-for-all policy offered opportunities for sale of Thai rubberwood and construction materials while the ban on plastic supported the export of cassava for biodegradable plastic.

He said Thai foods and fruit got favourable attention from Indian buyers due to certain similarities in the products in the two countries.

At Bangalore, 11,000 cubic metres of rubber worth Bt100 million were sold; cassava sales totalled 3,500 tonnes and were worth Bt72 million; glue powder (1,200 tonnes) worth Bt60 million; products under memorandum of understanding such as furniture, food, chemicals,etc were worth Bt805 million.

In addition, Thai products launched on Bigbasket, an India online grocery store website, are predicted to sell at least Bt50 million in value in the first year.

Jurin added that he had the chance to meet the commerce minister of the Indian state of Telangana. They plan to sign a memorandum of understanding to promote investments in both countries in the future. The value of trade negotiations and business matching in Hyderabad can be summarised as follows: 1280 cubic metres of rubberwood worth Bt17.5 million; 1,280 LCD TVs worth Bt1.5 billion; clothing worth Bt100 million;1,000 tonnes of flour worth of Bt18 million, and logistics services to help exports by Thai small entrepreneurs worth Bt50 million for a total of Bt1.68 billion.

Total sales in the two cities amounted to Bt2.78 billion.

Tisco Financial Group is predicting a narrow swing between a support level of 1,565-1,570 and a resistance level of 1,585 from Wednesday’s close of 1,574.59.

It cited several contributing factors for the muted trade, including concerns about the Wuhan coronavirus, an expected delay in disbursing the budget for fiscal 2020 and a lowered project for world economic growth from the International Monetary Fund.

Tisco is recommending investment in STEC, SEAFCO, PYLON, COMM, CPALL, BJC, BBL, KKP, SCB and AEONTS.

Coronavirus concerns dropped both Japan’s Nikkei 225 and South Korea’s Kospi about 1 per cent, the Shanghai Composite index and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng by more than 2 per cent and the Shenzhen Composite about 3 per cent.

There have been reports suggesting that thousands in Wuhan, public transit has been suspended, might be infected, rather than the official tally of 571.