Owners of six-wheel trucks and backhoe excavators are seeking help from the Finance Ministry, by negotiating with commercial banks or other financial institutes, to freeze their debt and interest payments until the COVID-19 situation improves to the extent that they can resume business.
Their representatives submitted a petition, addressed to the finance minister, today (Friday) asking for help by talking to their creditor banks, pointing out that over 10,000 operators have been without any revenue for several months now, as no-one has used their services, while they have about 60,000 baht in monthly expenses, including monthly instalments for their vehicles.
One of the representatives, said that, even though some banks have granted some of them temporary debt moratoria, they still charge them interest on the frozen instalments.
Their petition was received by Vice Minister for Finance Chuenchob Kongudom, who promised to bring their problem to the attention of the finance minister and, subsequently, the cabinet.
He told the petitioners that the Finance Ministry’s two-month debt moratorium, which was rolled out earlier, does not cover all business operators, but all of them have been affected by impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
