Disasters and emergency response

With rising demand for rubber gloves, products related to working from home, appliances, healthcare items and food because of the pandemic, the Commerce Ministry expects the country’s overall exports to shrink by just 5-8% this year.Pimchanok Vonkorpon, director-general of the Trade Policy and Strategy Office, ...

The Department of Labour Protection and Welfare has launched a new ad-hoc centre to track job losses, hoping to serve as an intermediary to help employers and workers gain access to legal rights.Covid-19 has affected businesses both in terms of increasing costs and unemployment. According ...

The Cabinet on Tuesday (September 15) resolved to set aside Bt6.17 billion to solve flooding and drought problems in the country, the government’s deputy spokesperson Rachada Dhnadirek said.The funds will be split between the Office of the Natural Water Resources (ONWR), the Department of Disaster ...

The Student Loan Fund (SLF) plans to increase its loan budget for academic year 2020 from Bt34 billion to Bt37 billion to help students and parents during the Covid-19 situation, and expects up to 650,000 borrowers.“The SLF has also adjusted the eligibility of borrowers from ...

The Cabinet on 25 August 2020 approved a budget of one billion baht for the National Vaccine Institute in order to increase Thailand’s potential for COVID-19 vaccine production, following a proposal by the Ministry of Public Health.The National Vaccine Institute has been working with several ...

Facebook and the Mekong River Commission (MRC) Secretariat today launched a collaboration initiative to provide early flood alert and drought monitoring information to riparian communities and governments in the Lower Mekong region.The first of its kind, the collaboration aims to raise awareness among the general public ...

With no end in sight to the economic downturn caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the government aims to put much of its aid effort towards fiscal stimulus to prop up the economy, though there are unfavourable consequences to this move.The newly formed Center for Economic ...

The Covid-19 pandemic has forced universities to reconsider how they deliver education, with most of them forced to quickly adopt online teaching models.On top of the immediate challenges posed by Covid-19, institutions in Thailand also face increasing pressures due to a falling birth rate and ...

The Department of Energy Business has said that the daily usage of fuel in the past seven months has fallen by 13.8 per cent compared to the same period last year.Nantika Thansuphanich, the department’s director general, said the nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of ...

A Chulalongkorn University doctor on Saturday announced tests of new locally produced Covid-19 vaccines on monkeys had proved successful.Head of the Thai Red Cross Emerging Infectious Disease Health Science Centre, Dr Thiravat Hemachudha, said the latest vaccine, using proteins from tobacco leaves, had been tested ...