The loan funds, which will be drawn down in 2011 and 2012, support the completion of ADB’s Capital Market Development Program, approved in September 2010.
The loan has a 15-year term, with a grace period of three years, and annual interest set in accordance with ADB’s LIBOR-based lending facility.
ADB director general for South East Asia Department Kunio Senga said this loan is part of a series of sustained ADB assistance starting back in 2006 to support the Royal Government’s agenda to deepen and diversify Thailand’s capital market, which is critical to support increased domestic financing of investment and to sustain higher longer term economic growth.
The ADB program is anchored to the government’s Capital Market Development Master Plan for 2009-2013, which provides a roadmap for finance sector development and reforms over the medium term.
This blueprint aims to develop Thailand’s equity, bond and money markets with the goal of tapping increasing amounts of domestic capital to help the country transform from a middle-income to a high-income economy.
ADB is supporting the government’s agenda in five areas, including the regulatory environment, market efficiency, liquidity and transparency, market infrastructure, new products and investor protection.
A grant of $900,000 from ADB’s Technical Assistance Special Fund is also being extended to help the government implement its master plan.
