State Enterprise Policy Office (SEPO)’s Director Supa Piyajitti on Tuesday requested Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij to approve benchmark policy on selling a 22.56 percent stake in Thai Military Bank (TMB) to Dutch financial institution conglomerate ING Group as the deal contract due.

She said the letter of request has reached the finance minister and approval is expected soon afterward.

The Finance Ministry’s decision to sell the ailing bank is quite clear. Currently, it approves a policy to offload the entire stock in commercially-operate financial institutions except for the state-fully-control Krung Thai Bank.

Saowanee Kamolbut, Deputy Permanent Secretary of Finance, said the Dutch conglomerate bank had bid for the entire stake from Finance Ministry at 1.60 baht a share.

She commented higher prices are still attractive.

Thailand Military Bank is in the process of adjusting its book value price in order to write off accumulated losses and begin to announce dividends for first time this year.

The bank said it expects a 3.2 percent growth in loans for 2010.

Mr. Korn previously said the Finance Ministry would sell the entire 22.56 percent stake in TMB to ING Group to shift focus to only one state bank at the time.