Siam Cement Group, the country's largest industrial conglomerate, has allocated an investment budget of Bt20 billion for this year, half of which will go to expanding the production capacity of some petrochemical projects isolated from the Map Ta Phut fiasco.

The budget excludes mergers and acquisitions (M&A), which should not exceed Bt10 billion per deal, president and CEO Kan Trakulhoon told reporters yesterday.

About Bt10 billion was allocated to the petrochemical business unit. About Bt5 billion-Bt6 billion will be spent on maintenance and the rest is planned to improve production efficiency and save energy.

Those petrochemical projects have not been suspended, as they were granted licences before the 2007 Constitution took effect, said Roongrote Rangsiyopash, vice president and chief financial officer.

Kan said SCG is in M&A talks with firms in ASEAN and expects to conclude a deal this quarter. The companies are in the paper, chemical and construction-material industries.

SCG is consulting with state agencies on the next step to unleash its Map Ta Phut projects and has updated its partners on the latest developments. Although the partners expressed concern about the unclear Map Ta Phut situation, they still intend to invest in Thailand with SCG.

SCG expects complying with the requirements under Article 67(2) of the Constitution to take eight to 12 months.

Roongrote said SCG is not thinking at this time about appealing to the Supreme Administrative Court. Some of its projects were supposed to start operating by the end of this year.

Eighteen projects worth Bt57.5 billion out of the 64 suspended projects in the Map Ta Phut Industrial Estate belong to SCG.

Kan targeted the company's revenue this year to grow by 10 per cent, assuming that it could not start the projects planned to open by the end of the year.

SCG's revenue fell 19 per cent to Bt238.66 billion last year because prices of chemical products and paper in the world market softened. However, it increased its net profit last year by 45 per cent to Bt24.35 billion by controlling costs and expanding its export markets.

The chemicals unit, which accounted for roughly half of SCG's net profit, earned Bt12.56 billion, up 105 per cent from a loss of Bt5 billion in 2008, while net sales declined by 26 per cent to Bt101.12 billion.

The company's board yesterday declared a dividend of Bt8.50 per share, on top of an interim dividend of Bt3.50 paid last August.

The board also approved the issuance of debentures worth up to Bt10 billion.