Companies urges Thai government to grant tax relief for vaccinations

This measure would serve as an indirect economic stimulus and boost vaccination rates in the country. 

Kobsak Pootrakool, a former PM’s Office minister, raised this proposal, saying that the cost to vaccinate an employee is 2,000 baht (US$60.3) on average. For a company such as a construction firm with 1,000 employees, this works out to be 2 million baht (US$60,338). 

However, such costs would be less than that of suspending operations at a factory or shutting down a construction site which is between 5 million baht (US$150,844) and 10 million baht (US$301,687) per day, which will be far higher than the cost of providing COVID-19 vaccines to workers, he said. 

Besides construction companies, other types of businesses also have a large number of employees to take care of, such as department stores and restaurant chains, said Kobsak, who is now a senior executive vice president of Bangkok Bank. 

He said that if businesses can resume operations after having their employees vaccinated, it would greatly contribute to keeping the country’s economy afloat. The government will then be able to focus its vaccination efforts on the more vulnerable groups. 

Kobsak said prime minister Prayut Chan-o-cha’s promise to remove red tape to the country importing COVID-19 vaccines is a positive sign for companies eager to import vaccines themselves. 

READ: Thailand approves 42 billion baht COVID-19 stimulus package

He urged the government to deal with the outbreak in a swift manner as the number of new infections remains high despite the lockdown being in place for almost a month. 

Kobsak was speaking at a recent Facebook ‘live’ streaming talk hosted by journalist Suthichai Yoon, according to Bangkok Post.