The cabinet on Tuesday approved another 81.2 billion baht of new borrowing in the 2023 fiscal year, mostly to cover fuel subsidies.
The Finance Ministry recently recommended that the borrowing plan of the Oil Fuel Fund Office be increased to 110 billion baht, from 30 billion approved earlier.
The fund has run up losses of about 130 billion baht mainly from subsidising the prices of diesel and cooking gas in a bid to slow inflation that hit a 24-year high last year.
As of the end of January, the fund had spent of 68.1 billion baht to subsidise diesel prices and 45.3 billion to subsidise liquefied petroleum gas prices.
Borrowing by some other state enterprises will increase by 1.2 billion baht, government spokesperson Traisuree Traisoranakul said in a statement.
The revised debt plan will result in total new borrowing rising to 1.13 trillion baht in the fiscal year that runs to Sept 30, she said.
The country’s public debt is now expected to be at 61.14% of gross domestic product (GDP) at the end of the fiscal year, still within the approved limit of 70%, she added.
