Bangkok Post
February 13, 2003

New Energy Minister Prommin Lertsuridej yesterday floated the idea of having the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat) raise funds from the stock market to finance the Salween dam to finance a large-scale hydro-power project on the Salween River to help alleviate the government’s financial burden.

As a result, Egat’s planned privatisation would be sped up and should be completed before the original schedule of 2004. As well, speedy privatisation would ease the government’s debt burden incurred by Egat’s other projects.

Earlier, Egat had said privatisation could erode its ability to borrow from financial institutions to finance the US$5.5-billion (236-billion-baht) project. The Finance
Ministry had also thrown support behind the Salween project, saying it would not much of a burden on the government because the construction period would span 10 years.

But Dr Prommin, who took over the energy portfolio from Pongthep Thepkanchana this week, said fund-raising on the market would be a win-win situation for all parties involved
‚Äì the government, the Egat, investors or consumers. “Anyway, the project deserves support from every party because it will help keep the cost of electricity production
at a minimum,” he said.

Dr Prommin said the government was adamant that it would not guarantee any more loans for Egat. It would also proceed to corporatise the authority, forcing it to raise funds from
the public through the stock market.

He said the government would hold talks with Burmese authorities to attract greater support for the project, for which a number of sites on the Salween River near the
Thailand-Burma border are being considered..

The project, with a capacity of 5,400 megawatts, would start supplying power to Thailand in 2012.

Asked about the controversial coal-fired power plants in Bo Nok and Hin Krut in Prachuap Khiri Khan, Dr Prommin said the government had made it clear that it was no longer involved in the issue and that Egat would have to negotiate with protesters by itself.

The government was also going ahead with the plan to develop the controversial Thai-Malaysian natural gas pipeline construction project in Songkhla, he added.