Thailand’s Economic Outlook Worst In 40 years

All the economic engines appear to have stopped functioning rendering Thailand’s economic outlook the worst in 40 years, said Mr Thanawat Polvichai, director of the Economic and Business Forecast Centre of the University of Thai Chamber of Commerce.

The contraction of economic growth, the shrinking of export and domestic consumption, farm price slump and delayed disbursement of government’s spending budget have combined to make the private sector feel not confident with the state of the economy, he explained.

Total export of the whole year which was earlier projected to grow by 4.1 percent has been revised down to 0.4 percent with 3.2 percent expansion of the industrial sector, 1.8 percent of consumption expansion and 3.6 percent growth of private sector’s investment.

With the exception of tourism sector which is projected to grow 13.7 percent with 28.8 million tourist arrivals.

Since economic growth is dependent on exports, the centre has painted three scenarios: if exports grow by 0.4 percent, the growth rate will be 3.2 percent; if export growth is zero, the economic growth rate will be 2.9 percent ; if export growth rate registers minus 1 percent, the economic growth rate will be 1.9 percent and if export growth is 1.5 percent, the GDP will be 4.1 percent.

Mr Thanawat said however that there is a slim chance that exports will pick up because Thailand’s major trading partners such as the European Union and Japan are experiencing economic slowdown.

Source: Thai PBS