Thailand to give US$4.6bil cash handout to farming households

A vendor wearing a face mask is driven by a tuk-tuk, or auto rickshaw, with vegetables for sale at a market in Bangkok, Thailand, on Tuesday (April 28). A month-long state of emergency remains enforced in Thailand to allow its government to impose stricter measures to control the coronavirus that has infected hundreds of people in the South-East Asian country. - AP

BANGKOK: Thailand plans to pay 10 million farming households a cash handout of 15,000 baht (US$462) at a cost of US$4.6bil, in its latest effort to mitigate the impact of the novel coronavirus outbreak.

The funds will come from already planned borrowing of 1 trillion baht for stimulus to counteract a sharp economic slowdown, government spokeswoman Narumon Pinyosinwat said in a briefing in Bangkok on Tuesday (April 16).