BANGKOK (Reuters): Thailand plans to buy back 122 billion baht ($3.73 billion) worth of small loans from 3.5 million people, the finance minister said on Monday, a move aimed at easing the country's crippling household debt problem.
Thai policymakers have long maintained that household debt has been an impediment to growth in South-East Asia's second-largest economy.
Thailand's ratio of household debt to gross domestic product was 86.8% by the end of June, among the highest levels in Asia. That amounted to 16.3 trillion baht ($497.71 billion).
"This flagship project will help reduce household debt in Thailand. It will improve the lives of those in debt," Finance Minister Ekniti Nitithanprapas told a press conference.
The amount of debt the government will buy back will be capped at 100,000 baht per individual, he said.
The first phase of the scheme will target 1.9 million accounts and 44 billion baht worth of loan buy repurchases, the central bank governor Vitai Ratanakorn said at the same event.
($1 = 32.7500 baht) (Reporting by Kitiphong Thaichareon, Thanadech Staporncharnchai, Chayut Setboonsarng; Editing by Martin Petty) - Reuters
