‘Eat, Shop, Spend’ campaign a big hit among Thai spenders
The government's “Eat, Shop, Spend” campaign has been highly successful in all three phases in boosting domestic consumption, a Finance Ministry official said.
Lavaron Sangsnit, director-general of the Fiscal Policy Office and Finance Ministry spokesman, said the campaign had been especially successful in boosting spending via the second g-wallet that requires money top up via the Pao Tang mobile application to receive cash-back rewards.
“Since the start of the campaign on September 27 to November 28, 11,761,099 people registered in all three phases with combined spending of Bt16.535 billion,” he said. “In phases 1 and 2, registrants get Bt1,000 transferred to their first g-wallet to spend at eligible shops and service providers. In phase 3, however, registrants have to top up their second g-wallet to get 20 per cent cash back after spending.”
“Spending of the second g-wallet spiked as high as Bt353 million per day, with accumulated spending at Bt4.928 billion, a ten-fold increase from October’s total spending at Bt400 million, while the average spending per registrant stands at Bt23,109. This means the campaign has been extremely well received by the public and that registrants are willing to spend their money and didn’t register just to get cash handouts,” Lavaron said.
According to the director-general, present spending of second g-wallet is roughly one-third of the total spending in the entire campaign. The “Eat, Shop, Spend” campaign is still active, but currently it is open exclusively for registrants aged over 60 to make sure that all groups of population benefit equally. This long-running economic stimulus campaign will end on January 31.
