Thanks to liquidity provided by the Small and Medium Enterprise Development Bank (SME Bank), several small tourism businesses have been able to continue operating.
The bank's spokesman Vichaya Vitheethum said yesterday that 1,237 small and medium tourism operators had been given loans worth a total of Bt2.09 billion.
Of the total loans, Bt633 million was allocated to 217 companies under the Thai Hotels Association, Bt563 million to 481 members of the Thai Restaurant Association, Bt438 million to 204 members of the Association of Thai Travel Agents and Bt463 million to 335 firms under the Tourism Council of Thailand.
He added that the bank had also extended five-year-long soft loans at the rate of 5 per cent to small resorts so they could survive. So far, a total of Bt2.04 billion has been given to 100 resort operators.
Meanwhile, the Standard Chartered Bank (Thailand) filed a lawsuit against the SME Bank on Wednesday demanding a compensation of Bt323 million, saying the SME Bank had failed to pay the interest and fines for 18 months over the issuance of the Floating Rate Certificate of Deposit (FRCD).
Earlier, the SME Bank had announced that the FRCD deal had been nullified but the foreign bank refused to accept this. This is the third time that the Standard Chartered Bank (Thailand) has sued the SME Bank on the FRCD issue.
In 2006, the SME Bank issued US$300 million (Bt10.24 billion) worth of FRCD and asked the foreign bank to cover the risk. Later, however, SME Bank decided to nullify the contract.
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