Meanwhile, it will concentrate on traceability and environmental-control systems with medium and large operators in the coming year, according to director-general Rachada Singalavanija.

The three projects are the Assets Capitalisation Project, the Energy Saving for Small Enterprises Project and the Environmental Management System for SMEs Project.

He said assets capitalisation would help operators to more easily approach the capital fund. This year there were 1,500 operators, over the department's target of 1,000 operators, applying for asset capitalisation.

He said banks in this project had extended loans of Bt230 billion for this whole year. Of the Bt230 billion, almost 50 per cent were One Tambon One Product (Otop) operators.

He expected loan extensions would increase to Bt300 billion next year, due to assets capitalisation, particularly machines from large companies like the Sahaviriya Group, the BLCP power plant and petrochemical industries. He added the department will revise some ministerial regulations such as asset-price evaluation fees to suit the current economy.

The department will implement the Energy Saving for Small Enterprise project among 95 enterprises from 19 industries such as the agro-industry, canned food, garments and rubber. It expects each operator would able to reduce energy costs in their plants by around 10 per cent.

The department will also focus on educating SME operators about environmental management by establishing the Environmental Management System for SMEs project. It will grant certifications to plants which pass specific environment-control standards.

Referring to statistics for plants that were the subject of legal action, Rachada said there were 444 plaintiffs this year, which decreased from 633 plaintiffs last year. He said most complaints accused plants of emitting bad odours. Hence, the department will kick off measures to control air pollution next year with 100 experts in the field.

In addition, the department will change the definition of a plant from the size of five horsepower up to 20 horsepower within the first quarter of next year.

He said there were not enough officers to effectively control all 120,000 plants nationwide. After revising the definition, the department will control only 50,000 plants in the coming year.

Instead, small plants would have their environmental management and quality standards controlled by local regulations and Public Health Ministry laws, he said.

Chalida     Ekvitthayavechnukul

The Nation