Writer: BangkokPost.com

Published: 6/08/2009 at 12:11 PM

The government has fulfilled its public commitment to the people and the country is now recovering from the economic crisis, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said in his report to the nation on his first six months in office on Thursday.

Mr Abhisit said it was clear from the start that tackling the economic and political crises hounding the country would not be easy.

"I knew from my first day in office that the crises would not be easy to overcome, but I vowed to work hard for the benefit of the country,'' the prime minister said in a nationally televised address from Government House.

"The government's main objective is to make Thai people happier and this policy has been implemented through more than 100 measures which I believe can deliver happiness to Thai people.

“The government has been like a firefighter confronted with a burning house. The main tasks were to help the people in the house, to put out the fire and then to renovate the house,” he said.

Since coming to office in December, the government had launched many projects to alleviate the economic and political crises, Mr Abhisit said.

The government had introduced a policy of 15 years free schooling to reduce education costs for parents. About 12 million students nationwide would benefit from this scheme.

The government had also given a 500 baht per month living allowance to 3.5 million elderly people, he said.

In addition, it had continued five cost of living relief measures for low income people, offering free rides on third class trains and public buses, free electricity and tap water for many homes and a freeze on the price of cooking gas.

These measures had helped reduced the cost of living of at least eight million households.

The prime minister then referred to the 2,000 baht "help the nation" cheques had handed out to nine million employees of state firms and workers in the private sector with a monthly income below 15,000 baht.

He said nearly one million village health volunteers were also now receiving a 600 baht a month allowance from the government.

The government had helped settle the problem of low prices for agricultural products through price pledging schemes for major cash crops such as rice and tapioca, which was helping 1.5 million farming households, he said.

To help jobless workers, the government had initiated a career sprout scheme in which 200,000 unemployed workers were provided with vocational training. At least 70 per cent of the re-trained workers, about 140,000, had found new employment, the prime minister said.

The government had also come up with measures to ensure that small and medium enterprises affected by the global recession and political turmoil has easier access to financial sources. As a result, loans totalaling 22.8 billion baht were approved for SMEs.

“As of now, several economic indicators, such as the GDP, industrial confidence index, revenue from value added tax, vehicle and motorbike sales, and production capacity utilisation, show that the domestic recession has bottomed out.

''The economy is now quickly picking up in a 'V' shape,'' Mr Abhisit said.

The prime minister said even though the economy was improving, the government would press ahead with its Thai Khem Kaeng (Strong Thailand) scheme to prepare the country for full recovery.

Under this scheme, the government would focus more on the development of education, health, science and technology, tourism, water resources, transport and irrigation systems. The problem of southern unrest would also be tackled, with than 400 development projects planned for the southernmost provinces, including halal food and oil palm cultivation.

However, political problems and the A(H1N1) flu outbreak were factors that could hinder economic recovery, he admitted.

On political front, Mr Abhisit said the government had a strong, determined commitment to national reconciliation. In trying to achieve this goal, the government must be very careful not to fall victim to particular groups that want to incite violence.

The prime minister said he believed that the parliamentary system was the solution to political conflict.

He thanked the people for their cooperation, which he said had enabled the government to have such success.