PM holds meeting of financial discipline panel on how to finance digital wallet scheme

The Government House source said Srettha held the meeting of the MPC at 2pm in his capacity as the finance minister. The meeting’s venue was moved from the Finance Ministry to Phakdee Bodin Building of Government House.

According to the source, the MPC had a secret meeting agenda of expanding the fiscal 2025 budget deficit and of increasing borrowing to offset the wider deficit.

The 2025 budget bill initially set the deficit at 713 billion baht or 3.56% of the projected GDP.

The initial spending proposal was 3.6 trillion baht against forecast revenue of 2.887 trillion baht. According to the Fiscal Disciplines Act, the government could borrow up to 820.8 billion baht to offset the budget deficit.

The 3.6 trillion expenditure includes 2.713 trillion baht of regular expenditure, 742.3 billion baht of investments, and 144 billion baht for loan repayment.

The source did not disclose details of the meeting’s results.

Meanwhile, Deputy Finance Minister Julapun Amornvivat said on Monday the details of the source of 500 billion baht for financing the digital scheme would be clear after a meeting of the national digital wallet policy committee.

Julapun said the committee, which is headed by Srettha himself, would meet on April 10.

He said some details of the financial source were still not clear, so the April 10 meeting had to be held before the government could announce the source of the money for the project.

The digital-wallet scheme was a flagship campaign policy of the Pheu Thai Party and Srettha himself. During the election campaigns, Srettha promised that all Thais 16 years of age and up would be eligible for a 10,000 baht handout and the money could be adjusted from unused government budget.

But after Pheu Thai became the coalition leader and the project was attacked by many economists, it was toned down to cover 50 million Thais whose salary is lower than 70,000 baht and who do not have up to 500,000 baht in a bank account. The government also plans to secure a huge loan to finance the scheme.

Meanwhile, Chayawadee Chai-anant, spokeswoman and assistant governor of the Bank of Thailand, said the central bank maintained its stance that the government should limit the handout to only vulnerable groups instead of giving it to 50 million Thais.

Chayawadee said the BOT believed it would benefit the economy more if the money were given only to members of vulnerable groups because consumption by several income groups has already been revived to the pre-Covid level.

She said if members of the groups with adequate income received the 10,000 baht handouts, it would not provide much economic stimulus.